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Dakotans for Health
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Safeguarding the Future of Family Building: Protecting In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) A Vital Move for Reproductive Freedom in South Dakota
February 22, 2024
Sioux Falls, SD…Dakotans for Health co-founder Rick Weiland, and Rapid City OBGYN Dr. Katie Degen said today that under the South Dakota “trigger law” that went into effect in 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, South Dakota law that defines a just fertilized egg as a ‘human being’ just as Alabama does, virtually assures copycat lawsuits that will effectively ban the in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures that have allowed thousands of women to become moms.
”This is madness. It will come to South Dakota the minute extremist advocates file suit here because South Dakota’s Legislature has enacted the same illogical fiction that a person is created at the instant of fertilization, and therefore a frozen embryo is a person, that opened the door to this insanity in Alabama,” Weiland said. “The only way to save IVF and restore reproductive rights in South Dakota is to reinstate Roe v Wade by writing it into the South Dakota Constitution; which is what our citizen-initiated amendment does,” Weiland concluded.
Dr. Degen pointed out that “IVF has turned the despair of infertility into the joy of motherhood for millions. To have that joy denied in South Dakota by a state government beholden to the extreme right to life view that a frozen embryo is subject to the same laws as a living child is just wrong,” Degen said. “Government needs to cease their attempts to control every aspect of a woman’s reproductive life. They need to realize that medical care is too nuanced for them to understand, and their ‘pro-life’ laws are now preventing the creation of new families. It is up to South Dakotans to keep their medical care between citizen and doctor, we need to exercise our civil rights and codify reproductive rights into our state constitution. That is what the reproductive freedom amendment to Restore Roe in South Dakota is all about,” she concluded.
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About Dakotans for Health:
Dakotans for Health is an advocacy group committed to promoting public health policies and initiatives that empower South Dakota residents. By championing the Freedom Amendment, Dakotans for Health seeks to ensure that every individual has the right to make personal decisions about their own bodies and futures.
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