The Right to Lie Movement: Obstruction of Truth and the South Dakota Ban
Tomorrow, the voters of South Dakota will consider, by referendum, the law passed by their legislature, and signed by their Governor, that bans abortion in their state. If South Dakotans support the law, it will create a direct challenge to the Roe v. Wade decision and send it on a course to the Supreme Court where the balance in favor of Roe now teeters by one pro-choice vote. If the South Dakota voters discard the ban, pro-life operatives will intensify efforts in other states in order to fill the judicial pipeline with similar challenges in anticipation of an opening on the high court within the next few years. Either way, the process by which the South Dakota law came to be should be of concern to all Americans, pro-choice and pro-life alike.
Before the South Dakota legislature banned abortion (even in cases of rape and incest) it created a task force whose purpose was, it's clear now, to justify that ban. Of course, the language that formed the task force didn't state that explicitly. The task force was set up to "study the practice of abortion since its legalization." It sounded clear and unbiased, but to assure the desired outcome the pro-life legislators took a crucial, initial step. They stacked this supposedly unbiased, supposedly scientific study group with leaders from the right to life establishment, including the Executive Director of Right to Life of South Dakota, a board member of the National Right to Life committee, the Director of the Respect Life office of the South Dakota Catholic Diocese as well as the husband of the campaign manager of Vote Yes for Life, the organization leading the statewide campaign to ban all abortions. (Just to put things in perspective, the website of Vote Yes for Life, the online headquarters of the campaign to ban all legal abortions in the South Dakota, proclaims, "Most Rape and Incest Victims Don't Want Abortions" No legitimate studies were cited to back up the claim, and that's because the legitimate ones find otherwise. A 2005 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that 84% of women report that in rape or incest report they would consider abortion.) A few physicians were hand-selected to sit on the task force, though the pro-life majority seemed to have in mind a particular sort of doctor, like Dr. David Wachs, a South Dakotan family medicine doctor who refuses to prescribe birth control to patients. With their people in place making for a comfortable voting majority, the pro-life block set some ground rules.
The first task force meeting was opened by pro-life State Representative Roger Hunt. Representative Hunt sponsored the bill creating the task force and would later be the lead sponsor of the total abortion ban bill. Hunt has been fairly straightforward about his views on sex, this year he explained on the floor of the state legislature that "Intercourse is for the purpose of reproducing the human race," To open the proceedings, Hunt explained that the task force should accept as evidence only studies that met the highest standards. Minutes later, Hunt, along with other nine majority pro-life members - there were seventeen members - struck down a motion requiring the taskforce only accept as evidence studies that were peer-reviewed and published. Clearly, the task force wasn't interested in science; it was interested in results, even if they had to be obtained through science fiction, a disturbing practice that has become a hallmark of the right to life movement's approach.
Even Dr. Marty Allison, the pro-life chairperson of the task force (though a pro-lifer with no ties to the pro-life establishment), was left wondering why the right-to-life movement was unable to wage its campaign honestly, democratically, and using legitimate scientific research. Allison, a pediatrician from Sioux Falls, SD explains, "Basically, our assignment was to be a data collecting, fact finding group and we were supposed to be objective and gather the research and present it in objective fashion. I just want people to know that is not what happened. The end result was a subjective, biased report that was put out and the whole process was ruled by the majority (pro-life) members and what their beliefs were. I believe pro-life South Dakotan's would want their opinions based on fact, correct information and found through a democratic process. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way."
Though the taskforce did occasionally allow the appearance of honest examination. It did permit testimony by a true national expert on legalized abortion, Dr. Stanley Henshaw. Henshaw is a Senior Fellow at the Guttmacher Institute, the nation’s premier research center on reproductive health issues, including abortion, and has authored over 60 articles and publications on abortion in the United States and internationally. Henshaw came away with a distinct impression of his interviewers. “These weren’t just any anti-abortion people,” he said, “they were the most extreme anti-abortion people and from what I observed, close-minded. They didn’t have apparently a strong sense of fairness.” And while his testimony never made it into the final report, the pro-life majority opinion of him did. Unpersuaded, or perhaps threatened, by the reams of data Henshaw presented detailing how legal abortion has decreased the death rate among pregnant women and lowered infant mortality and morbidity, the pro-life majority conclude in their final report that Henshaw’s testimony was "offensive [and] eugenic in nature," and therefore the task force "disregard[ed] his opinion." (Henshaw explains it was par for the pro-life course. “They were looking for anyway to disregard actual objective studies,” he said.) Eventually, the South Dakota Legislative Council removed the eugenics slur for fear of being sued for slander.
The pro-life majority of the taskforce instead embraced testimony of like-minded individuals, regardless of its truthfulness. Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of Advocates for Pregnant Women, a pro-choice advocate who also testified reported that “The taskforce accepted testimony from psychologist Vincent Rue who claims that women who have abortions are at serious risk of experiencing what he as called "post abortion trauma," a trauma supposedly associated with having had an abortion. Dr. Rue argued that the Task Force should adopt significant and costly new laws based on his personal theories. These theories, however, have been rejected by his peers both in the field of psychology and even among leaders opposed to abortion. Former United States Surgeon General, Dr. Koop, for example though personally opposed to abortion, has testified, ‘the psychological effects of abortion are miniscule from a public health perspective.’ Moreover the assertion that there are unique and significant psychological harms as a result of abortion has been rejected by numerous peer reviewed scientific studies addressing this question and by leading medical groups including the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.”
Towards the end of the taskforce meetings, the majority pro-lifers apparently convened in private to decide what they’d be doing, even if they’d told the minority members the exact opposite. For instance, when asked whether a final report was going to be produced, Rep. Hunt suggested it was unnecessary, not required. So it came as something of a surprise to the minority members when the evening before their final meeting they received via email a 77page document entitled “Report of the South Dakota Task Force on Abortion” along with instructions to review it and be prepared to comment on it the following day. One didn’t need to get far into the document (Section A1 was titled “the Incorrect Assumptions of the Roe v. Wade decision”) to understand its conclusion: abortion should be made illegal.
At the final hearing, the pro-choice minority members, as a last resort, offered motions primarily focused on promoting ways to prevent abortion by expanding access to contraception and comprehensive sex education. Every motion to equip the citizens of South Dakota with a greater chance to avoid unintended pregnancy was rejected by the pro-life majority. The four pro-choice task force members in attendance finally stormed out of the meeting in disgust. One who left, Dr. Maria Bell, an ob-gyn and surgeon, was the co-chair of the task force and later explained: “The task force members who walked out of the meeting had spent much of the meeting introducing findings and recommendations which would have, if adopted by the Legislature, resulted in a reduction of unplanned pregnancies in South Dakota, thereby reducing the number of abortions in the state. All of these recommendations were struck down by the anti-reproductive rights majority on the task force. They weren’t willing to do anything to reduce the need for abortion by preventing unplanned pregnancies.”
The bill that came out of the task force report is now law. It states: “The Legislature finds, based upon the conclusions of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion, and in recognition of the technological advances and medical experience and body of knowledge about abortions produced and made available since the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, that to fully protect the rights, interests, and health of the pregnant mother, the rights, interest, and life of her unborn child, and the mother's fundamental natural intrinsic right to a relationship with her child, abortions in South Dakota should be prohibited.” South Dakotans will have one last chance to reject the conclusions, as well as the means by which they were reached, tomorrow.
Before the South Dakota legislature banned abortion (even in cases of rape and incest) it created a task force whose purpose was, it's clear now, to justify that ban. Of course, the language that formed the task force didn't state that explicitly. The task force was set up to "study the practice of abortion since its legalization." It sounded clear and unbiased, but to assure the desired outcome the pro-life legislators took a crucial, initial step. They stacked this supposedly unbiased, supposedly scientific study group with leaders from the right to life establishment, including the Executive Director of Right to Life of South Dakota, a board member of the National Right to Life committee, the Director of the Respect Life office of the South Dakota Catholic Diocese as well as the husband of the campaign manager of Vote Yes for Life, the organization leading the statewide campaign to ban all abortions. (Just to put things in perspective, the website of Vote Yes for Life, the online headquarters of the campaign to ban all legal abortions in the South Dakota, proclaims, "Most Rape and Incest Victims Don't Want Abortions" No legitimate studies were cited to back up the claim, and that's because the legitimate ones find otherwise. A 2005 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that 84% of women report that in rape or incest report they would consider abortion.) A few physicians were hand-selected to sit on the task force, though the pro-life majority seemed to have in mind a particular sort of doctor, like Dr. David Wachs, a South Dakotan family medicine doctor who refuses to prescribe birth control to patients. With their people in place making for a comfortable voting majority, the pro-life block set some ground rules.
The first task force meeting was opened by pro-life State Representative Roger Hunt. Representative Hunt sponsored the bill creating the task force and would later be the lead sponsor of the total abortion ban bill. Hunt has been fairly straightforward about his views on sex, this year he explained on the floor of the state legislature that "Intercourse is for the purpose of reproducing the human race," To open the proceedings, Hunt explained that the task force should accept as evidence only studies that met the highest standards. Minutes later, Hunt, along with other nine majority pro-life members - there were seventeen members - struck down a motion requiring the taskforce only accept as evidence studies that were peer-reviewed and published. Clearly, the task force wasn't interested in science; it was interested in results, even if they had to be obtained through science fiction, a disturbing practice that has become a hallmark of the right to life movement's approach.
Even Dr. Marty Allison, the pro-life chairperson of the task force (though a pro-lifer with no ties to the pro-life establishment), was left wondering why the right-to-life movement was unable to wage its campaign honestly, democratically, and using legitimate scientific research. Allison, a pediatrician from Sioux Falls, SD explains, "Basically, our assignment was to be a data collecting, fact finding group and we were supposed to be objective and gather the research and present it in objective fashion. I just want people to know that is not what happened. The end result was a subjective, biased report that was put out and the whole process was ruled by the majority (pro-life) members and what their beliefs were. I believe pro-life South Dakotan's would want their opinions based on fact, correct information and found through a democratic process. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way."
Though the taskforce did occasionally allow the appearance of honest examination. It did permit testimony by a true national expert on legalized abortion, Dr. Stanley Henshaw. Henshaw is a Senior Fellow at the Guttmacher Institute, the nation’s premier research center on reproductive health issues, including abortion, and has authored over 60 articles and publications on abortion in the United States and internationally. Henshaw came away with a distinct impression of his interviewers. “These weren’t just any anti-abortion people,” he said, “they were the most extreme anti-abortion people and from what I observed, close-minded. They didn’t have apparently a strong sense of fairness.” And while his testimony never made it into the final report, the pro-life majority opinion of him did. Unpersuaded, or perhaps threatened, by the reams of data Henshaw presented detailing how legal abortion has decreased the death rate among pregnant women and lowered infant mortality and morbidity, the pro-life majority conclude in their final report that Henshaw’s testimony was "offensive [and] eugenic in nature," and therefore the task force "disregard[ed] his opinion." (Henshaw explains it was par for the pro-life course. “They were looking for anyway to disregard actual objective studies,” he said.) Eventually, the South Dakota Legislative Council removed the eugenics slur for fear of being sued for slander.
The pro-life majority of the taskforce instead embraced testimony of like-minded individuals, regardless of its truthfulness. Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of Advocates for Pregnant Women, a pro-choice advocate who also testified reported that “The taskforce accepted testimony from psychologist Vincent Rue who claims that women who have abortions are at serious risk of experiencing what he as called "post abortion trauma," a trauma supposedly associated with having had an abortion. Dr. Rue argued that the Task Force should adopt significant and costly new laws based on his personal theories. These theories, however, have been rejected by his peers both in the field of psychology and even among leaders opposed to abortion. Former United States Surgeon General, Dr. Koop, for example though personally opposed to abortion, has testified, ‘the psychological effects of abortion are miniscule from a public health perspective.’ Moreover the assertion that there are unique and significant psychological harms as a result of abortion has been rejected by numerous peer reviewed scientific studies addressing this question and by leading medical groups including the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.”
Towards the end of the taskforce meetings, the majority pro-lifers apparently convened in private to decide what they’d be doing, even if they’d told the minority members the exact opposite. For instance, when asked whether a final report was going to be produced, Rep. Hunt suggested it was unnecessary, not required. So it came as something of a surprise to the minority members when the evening before their final meeting they received via email a 77page document entitled “Report of the South Dakota Task Force on Abortion” along with instructions to review it and be prepared to comment on it the following day. One didn’t need to get far into the document (Section A1 was titled “the Incorrect Assumptions of the Roe v. Wade decision”) to understand its conclusion: abortion should be made illegal.
At the final hearing, the pro-choice minority members, as a last resort, offered motions primarily focused on promoting ways to prevent abortion by expanding access to contraception and comprehensive sex education. Every motion to equip the citizens of South Dakota with a greater chance to avoid unintended pregnancy was rejected by the pro-life majority. The four pro-choice task force members in attendance finally stormed out of the meeting in disgust. One who left, Dr. Maria Bell, an ob-gyn and surgeon, was the co-chair of the task force and later explained: “The task force members who walked out of the meeting had spent much of the meeting introducing findings and recommendations which would have, if adopted by the Legislature, resulted in a reduction of unplanned pregnancies in South Dakota, thereby reducing the number of abortions in the state. All of these recommendations were struck down by the anti-reproductive rights majority on the task force. They weren’t willing to do anything to reduce the need for abortion by preventing unplanned pregnancies.”
The bill that came out of the task force report is now law. It states: “The Legislature finds, based upon the conclusions of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion, and in recognition of the technological advances and medical experience and body of knowledge about abortions produced and made available since the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, that to fully protect the rights, interests, and health of the pregnant mother, the rights, interest, and life of her unborn child, and the mother's fundamental natural intrinsic right to a relationship with her child, abortions in South Dakota should be prohibited.” South Dakotans will have one last chance to reject the conclusions, as well as the means by which they were reached, tomorrow.
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