A South Dakota judge dismissed a lawsuit that an anti-abortion group filed in June targeting an abortion rights measure that voters rejected this month. In an order dated Friday, Circuit Court Judge John Pekas granted Life Defense Fund's motion to dismiss its lawsuit against Dakotans for Health, the measure group. In a statement, Life Defense Fund co-chair Leslee Unruh said: “The people have decided, and South Dakotans overwhelmingly rejected this constitutional abortion measure.
We have won in the court of public opinion, and South Dakotans clearly saw the abortion lobby’s deception.” Dakotans for Health co-founder Rick Weiland said he had expected the lawsuit to be dismissed. “The Life Defense Fund’s accusations were part of a broader, failed effort to keep Amendment G off the ballot and silence the voices of South Dakota voters,” Weiland said in a statement.
"But make no mistake — this dismissal is just one battle in a much larger war over the future of direct democracy in South Dakota.” Life Defense Fund's lawsuit had challenged petitions that got the measure on the ballot, saying they contained invalid signatures and circulators committed fraud and various wrongdoing. The anti-abortion group sought to invalidate the ballot initiative and bar the measure group and its workers from doing ballot-measure work for four years.
The judge initially dismissed the lawsuit in July, but the state Supreme Court sent it back to him in August. In September, an apparent .
