South Dakota Legislators to Introduce Abortion Ban - Again

But this time with exceptions, reports the Argus Leader:

Just months after voters shot down an abortion ban, South Dakota lawmakers on Monday announced new plans to put strong restrictions on the controversial procedure. But this time, they would allow for key exceptions.

A bipartisan group of legislators calling themselves Legislators for Life said they will introduce an abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life and health of a pregnant woman — allowances that South Dakotans have indicated are essential for approval.

“It will definitely reduce the number of abortions in South Dakota,” Rep. Mary Glenski, D-Sioux Falls, said at the group’s announcement Monday in the Capitol rotunda.

The measure is expected to reignite a debate that gripped South Dakota and garnered national attention last year.

Proponents of the new measure hope to gain support among those who thought the 2006 abortion ban – which outlawed abortion in all cases except those done to save the life of a pregnant woman – was too strict. That ban was passed by the Legislature, signed by Gov. Mike Rounds and then defeated at the polls in November by a margin of 56 percent to 44 percent.

The newspaper took two polls before the election, and in both cases voters indicated that had the ban included clear exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the health of a pregnant woman, it would have passed overwhelmingly. South Dakota has only one abortion clinic, located in Sioux Falls.