American Civil Liberties Union

Recently, an extreme bill sailed through the South Dakota legislature, which places unprecedented restrictions on access to abortion care. This bill requires women to wait 72 hours between the first counseling session with the doctor and the abortion; it also requires women to first visit “crisis pregnancy centers,” entities that are notorious for providing false and misleading information; and requires doctors to tell the woman of any possible risk factor published in medical and psychological journals since 1972. These new restrictions are on top of the long list of abortion restrictions in South Dakota, and they also come from a state that tried to ban abortion outright twice in the last few years. These new attempts to restrict abortion are outrageous attempts to deny women basic health care services, and to shame and humiliate them. Enough is enough.

In the past few weeks, we at the ACLU have been able to rejoice over several provisions of a recent piece of legislation signed into law on July 28 by President Obama. The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 dedicates additional resources and grants additional powers to American Indian tribes throughout the country to combat the serious crisis of sexual assault and domestic violence against American Indian women. The act expands training programs for tribal officers on how to interview sexual assault victims and provides for additional training on evidence collection so that more convictions for sexual assault can occur. The new act also allows for greater collaboration between Indian Health Services and the Department of Justice on standardized protocols for how to handle and work with sexual assault victims.

The year 2009 was a whirlwind for the ACLU of South Dakota and one of our major projects is moving forward at exceptional speed. Last year, the ACLU of South Dakota began work with Equality South Dakota on the "Workplace Fairness Project," a grassroots approach to address anti-LGBT discrimination. The ultimate goal is to amend the South Dakota Human Rights Act to add sexual orientation and gender identity to already existing discrimination protections. It was a long year, a hard year with a few major victories, but a lot of setbacks, and sometimes you had to wonder: "Is this worth it?"