To hear Angela Kennecke and Lou Raguse tell it on KELO, you'd think the Campaign for Healthy Families was the Bush administration. "Silence the debate"? "Prevent discussion"? Did Leslee Unruh write KELO's text?
Angela and Lou seem to miss the point. To understand what's really going on, let's look at the full text of the petition the Campaign for Healthy Families is circulating:
We've had enough.....
Over the past 15 years, South Dakota has passed some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, including parental notification, a mandatory waiting period, and restricting access to abortions after the first trimester.
South Dakota has the lowest rate of abortion in the nation.
Still, every year, the Legislature takes time and money to fight about abortion.
Just last year, South Dakota voters rejected an abortion ban.
That election created a bitter debate that pitted neighbor against neighbor and divided our communities.
State legislators have done enough. Now it's up to South Dakota's families.
It's time to heal and move forward.
We ask the South Dakota State Legislature to please stop fighting over abortion and dividing our communities and to spend more time focusing on issues such as health care, education funding, and economic development.
[Campaign for Healthy Families petition, downloaded 2007.10.11... and oh! Look! You can sign online! Yay, technology!]
Doesn't sound like CHF is trying to stifle debate at all (and believe me, CHF organizer and ex-South Dakota HS debate champ Nathan Peterson would laugh hard at that accusation). CHF is trying to expand the debate to legislation that might actually do some good, save some lives, and put more food on the table for all South Dakotans, while people like Leslee Unruh and Roger Hunt seek to use the Legislature as their own personal moral grandstand.
While there is a sick pleasure in watching Leslee Unruh constantly and smilingly deny reality (rather like the amusement people derived in a less sensitive age from strolling past the insane asylum and gawking at the inmates), we would do better to follow CHF's advice and the will of the voters and focus on a broader range of bread-and-butter issues in the upcoming legislative session.
So bring that petition over, Nathan! I can't wait to sign... nor, from the sounds of it, can thousands of other South Dakotans.
I would really like to see a stop put to these endless ant-abortion bills that certain legislators seem to think have to be introduced and discussed every year. What a waste of time and money.
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