Anti-abortion faith group emerges after earlier formation of abortions-rights group

Signs at Blessed Sacrament Church on Oct. 4, 2024, in Rapid City encourage voters to reject an abortion-rights ballot measure. (Seth Tupper/South Dakota Searchlight)

A group working against the abortion-rights measure on South Dakota's Nov. 5 ballot announced Thursday that 220 faith leaders in the state oppose the measure. The announcement came one month after an abortion-rights group unveiled its own coalition of 35 faith leaders supporting the measure.

The new announcement is from the Life Defense Fund, which opposes Amendment G .

The group said the faith leaders signed a joint statement urging South Dakotans to vote against the amendment. One of the signers is the Rev. Janine Rew-Werling, of Hosanna Lutheran Church in Watertown.

"As a pastor, my heart is for post abortive women and their struggles with guilt, shame, anxiety, depression, and even their risk of suicide," Rew-Werling said in a news release. "I have witnessed the reality of post-abortion trauma, and Amendment G is too extreme, putting women in danger."

Last month's announcement of a faith leaders' coalition supporting the measure came from Dakotans for Health, the ballot question committee that petitioned the abortion-rights measure onto the ballot.

After the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, a trigger law that the South Dakota Legislature had adopted in 2005 immediately banned abortions in the state except when necessary to "preserve the life of the pregnant female."

The proposed amendment would prohibit first-trimester regulations on "a pregnant woman's abortion decision and its effectuation." In the second trimester, it would allow regulations "reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman." In the third trimester, it would allow an abortion ban with a mandatory exception to "preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman."

Meanwhile, a lawsuit from the Life Defense Fund aims to invalidate the ballot measure, but the lawsuit isn't scheduled for a trial until after the election. The group alleges various legal infractions by the petition circulators who gathered signatures to place the measure on the ballot.