Associated Press, March 15, 2006
Poll shows abortion ban unpopular
Author: JOE KAFKA
A scientific poll done for a political group that concentrates on issues indicates a majority of residents oppose a proposed state law seeking to outlaw most abortions in South Dakota.
Pollsters hired by Focus: South Dakota contacted 630 South Dakota voters by telephone for random interviews from Thursday through Saturday, and 62 percent said the legislation is too extreme, 33 percent said they support the bill and the rest were undecided.
When people were asked if they thought the abortion ban should be put on the November ballot, 72 percent answered yes. Pollsters found that 79 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of independents, and 65 percent of Republicans favor a statewide vote on the issue.
Fifty-seven percent of those polled said they would then vote to override the proposal, 36 percent would keep the ban and the rest were undecided about the measure.
"It would be crushed," said Jeff Masten of Sioux Falls, a former state Democratic Party chairman who is vice chairman of Focus: South Dakota.
"Failing to include an exception for rape and incest is going to be fatal ... absolutely fatal," he said of HB1215, the abortion bill.
However, Leslee Unruh, a state leader in the battle against abortion, said she doesn't believe the poll was done properly. She also said Focus: South Dakota is suspect because it gets much of its money from national abortion-rights groups.
Unruh said the South Dakota political group collected $20,000 from Planned Parenthood during the 2004 election cycle and $5,000 from the National Abortion Rights and Action League.
Unruh also said 99 percent of abortions are done for reasons other than rape and incest, and the poll takers insinuated that the proposed South Dakota law does not provide any exceptions in those instances. The measure allows for emergency contraception, she said.
If the abortion bill is put on the fall ballot, voters would approve it, Unruh said. She said abortion foes will conduct a "campaign sweep across South Dakota like you've never seen."
A statewide effort to promote the legislation will begin April 2, she said.
"It's important that people get the right information so they can make the right decisions, and I believe that most South Dakotans want to protect women and babies," Unruh said. "South Dakota citizens do not support abortion as a means of birth control."
Jim Robinson, treasurer of Focus: South Dakota, said Wednesday the group has collected no money from either Planned Parenthood or the NARAL, as Unruh said.
"She's just making that up," Robinson told The Associated Press. "We don't file finance reports with the Federal Election Commission or the state. We're not required to because we're not that kind of an organization."
Results of the poll, which had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percent, show that most legislators are out of tune with their constituents on abortion, said Masten, a lawyer and radiation oncology physicist.
"The thing about 1215 is that it bypasses that huge group of voters who think that abortion should be allowed but with moderate to significant restrictions," he said.
Focus: South Dakota officials are talking with several South Dakota groups interested in mounting a petition drive to put the legislation on the ballot, he said. Masten said the petition campaign will be done, but yet to be decided is which groups want to take part. Masten said he is aware that a Wisconsin group planned to conduct such a signature-gathering campaign and that his group is trying to talk the out-of-staters into abandoning their effort.
"It would be best to have this as a South Dakota effort. This is something that South Dakota ought to settle, and the survey pretty much indicates how it will be settled," he said.
Sen. Ed Olson, R-Mitchell, who opposes abortion but voted against the abortion ban because it has no exclusions for rape, incest and endangerment of the health of pregnant women, said Wednesday he believes the measure would be soundly defeated at the ballot.
Olson failed to convince his colleagues to add an amendment to the bill that would have automatically put it to a statewide vote.
He explained legislative approval of the bill by saying abortion foes worked very hard in the last election to make sure that candidates who oppose abortion were put in the Legislature.
"They are so committed to that cause, and for a lot of people that's their only issue. They could care less about a lot of other things," Olson said.
The Focus: South Dakota poll, which was conducted by the Sioux Falls polling firm Robinson & Muenster Associates, found that:
22 percent believe abortion should be legal and left entirely up to women.
15 percent believe it should be legal but parental consent should be required if pregnant females are younger than 16.
25 percent believe abortion should be legal in cases of rape, incest and medical danger to a woman's life.
20 percent believe abortion should be allowed only to save a woman's life.
13 percent believe abortion should not be legal under any circumstances.
the rest were undecided.
Masten said it is interesting that the poll also found that 30 percent of those who said they oppose abortion do not favor HB1215.
"The almost 2-to-1 margin against 1215 kind of surprised me because supporters of the bill were saying it somehow reflects what South Dakota voters are all about," he said.
"What is surprising is that Roger Hunt and his crew has single-handedly managed to make themselves a minority in the state," Masten added.
Hunt, a Republican lawmaker from Brandon, was the prime House sponsor of the legislation. He did not immediately return a phone call Wednesday.
Robinson, the Focus: South Dakota official, said results of the poll show that legislators who voted to ban abortion are far from the political mainstream.
"It was very illustrative of what an extremist minority this really is," he said.
"These folks have been thinking they're the majority for so long they came to believe it," Robinson added. "It's not true, and it's never been true."
Robinson is former executive director of the state Democratic Party; Jody Severson of Rapid City, a political consultant, is the head of Focus: South Dakota.
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