FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Press Office
Dakotans for Health
605-610-8146
Rep. Jon Hansen and LDF Leverage Legal System to Extend Harassment Campaign and Revive Discredited Allegations
August 31, 2024
Sioux Falls, SD…“First, Jon Hansen and his Life Defense Fund ran their failed ‘decline to sign’ and ‘remove your name’ campaigns to try to keep abortion rights off the ballot. Now, they are abusing South Dakota’s legal system with a show trial they know will cost taxpayers thousands of dollars and will again fail to keep abortion off the ballot,” said Rick Weiland, sponsor of the Reproductive Freedom Amendment G. “The sole purpose of this legal charade is to continue his intimidation campaign against South Dakota citizen circulators and give the Life Defense Fund a new platform to recycle their lies about Freedom Amendment G, hoping to con the media into reporting them yet again. This trial,” Weiland continued, “is a blatant attempt by Hansen and his LDF to use South Dakota’s taxpayer-funded court system as a free megaphone for his campaign in favor of the total abortion ban he has imposed on women and against our Freedom Amendment G, which would end the ban.”
Weiland criticized Hansen’s “evidence” as being “as substantial as fog, a collection of videos made by LDF stalkers who followed young women circulators around, seeking to distract and intimidate them and scare citizens into not signing. It’s a joke,” Weiland stated. “This is all old news. We’re talking about minor technical issues, like a volunteer leaving a petition table briefly unattended to take a bathroom break, or not verbally pointing out the attorney general’s description of the amendment. These errors occur in every petition drive and actually occurred less frequently in our drive, which attained one of the highest official signature validation rates ever. Were such errors ruled disqualifying, no citizen initiative could ever qualify for the ballot, and our citizens’ right to vote on controversial issues would be destroyed.”
Weiland also labeled as “absurd” LDF’s contention that the Court should instruct the South Dakota Secretary of State to ignore the vote of the people on abortion. “Every lawyer knows that is a power held by neither the court nor the SOS,” Weiland added.
“And what cements this case as a show trial,” Weiland concluded, “is that even if all of LDF’s charges were accepted as fact, they still wouldn’t come close to invalidating enough signatures to remove the abortion rights amendment from the ballot.”
“On behalf of the people of South Dakota, Dakotans for Health requests that the Life Defense Fund disclose how much this anti-abortion show trial, which they are forcing South Dakota’s legal system to put on, will cost taxpayers,” Weiland said.
“This flagrant misuse of our legal system by Right-To-Life extremists is nothing more than an attempt to maintain a radical ban on abortion and prejudice voters against Amendment G,” Weiland stated.
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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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