For more than a decade, anti-choice lawmakers and activists have pursued a strategy of imposing incremental restrictions on access to reproductive health care. While they often claim that they are simply enacting measures to protect women, it is clear that their true goal is to overturn Roe v. Wade—a goal that remains unpopular with the American public.
South Dakota made headlines in 2006 when it enacted a near-total ban on abortion, which supporters admitted was designed to challenge Roe. The legal and political road to that ban provides a useful case study of how anti-choice forces use "incremental" state restrictions on abortion to build toward the ultimate goal of eliminating the right to choose. And South Dakota voters' clear rejection of the ban on the November 2006 ballot is evidence of how out of touch anti-choice forces are with mainstream America.
For two decades after Roe v. Wade, South Dakota imposed few restrictions on abortion. But beginning in the 1990s, national events—including changes in Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House—galvanized far-right activists in South Dakota and elsewhere. Anti-choice politicians and organizations began using state legislatures as laboratories to experiment with new restrictions on women and doctors, pushing the boundaries of the law and, in many cases, attempting to ban abortion almost entirely.
