FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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Dakotans for Health
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New Republican Group, Republicans for Freedom Amendment G, Led by Former Longtime GOP Legislator and City Councilor Advocating for Reproductive Rights in South Dakota, Citing Broad Support Among GOP Voters
July 9, 2024
Watertown, SD… Nancy Turbak, Chair of the Freedom Amendment Coalition, today announced that Republicans for Freedom Amendment G would be the first newly organized group to join her coalition because "Republican politicians are not representing the views of most Republican voters on the abortion issue."
Turbak said that "Casey Murschel, former Republican State Representative, city council member, and former State Chapter Coordinator for the Child Advocacy Centers of South Dakota, will chair the newly formed Republicans for Freedom Amendment G."
Turbak noted that 65% of South Dakota Republicans in a 2022 USD survey favor allowing a woman who has been raped to choose abortion, but not a single Republican politician has been willing to even try to repeal the states existing near-total abortion ban that denies them that right.
Turbak also noted that over a third of the 55,000 voters who signed the reproductive rights petition circulated by Dakotans for Health were registered Republicans and that Freedom Amendment G had broad support from Republicans, Independents as well as Democrats. “This has nothing to do with partisan politics and everything to do with personal freedom,” Turbak stated.
In a statement released today, Murschel stated:
"As Republicans, we support smaller government and individual liberty. It is not right that a woman who has been raped in South Dakota does not have the freedom to choose abortion. It is not right that in South Dakota every woman who wants a family must worry about whether her doctor will be brave enough to give her miscarriage care in the face of total abortion ban laws which many fear could put them in jail.
Republicans are supposed to be for freedom. Even Kristi Noem and Donald Trump have said publicly this year that rape, incest, and the health of the mother should be reasons which would permit a woman the freedom to choose abortion. But in South Dakota, that choice is against the law. The hard-core anti-abortion wing of our party has captured the state legislature and decreed that the freedom to choose abortion for any reason at any stage of pregnancy must be taken away. But that is not Republicanism. That is zealotry. It is using the law to force one’s personal beliefs on everybody else. It is the exact opposite of Republicanism. It is what some Republicans accuse their Democrat opponents of doing and it is wrong.
That is why our organization is being formed and is calling on all true Republicans to join us in supporting Freedom Amendment G in November. We will support restoring reproductive rights and the freedom women once had to make their own decisions when it comes to reproductive healthcare because it is the right thing to do. We will support it with our dollars, with our voices, and with our time. We will support it proudly, as Republicans and as Americans, because we believe in freedom. We will support it by displaying our American flags and at the ballot box. We will support it as we tell our loved ones and friends that freedom of choice must always be their right and must never be handed over to their government.
That, we believe, is Republicanism, and it is why we are for Freedom Amendment G. Please join us!"
About the Freedom Amendment Coalition:
The Freedom Amendment Coalition is a grassroots coalition dedicated to restoring reproductive rights in South Dakota by advocating for Amendment G, which aims to reinstate the protections of Roe v. Wade in the state.
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About Dakotans for Health:
Dakotans for Health is a grassroots organization focused on healthcare and protecting the democratic process. The organization was instrumental in the successful 2022 campaign to expand Medicaid coverage to 52,000 low-income South Dakotans. Dakotans for Health will continue its efforts to ensure our neighbors have access to the care they need, no matter who they are, what they look like, or how much money they have.
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