An Invitation To Kill

As if things weren’t bad enough for the state of reproductive rights in South Dakota.

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.

Of course, proponents of this bill are saying it has nothing to do with abortion, but with “preventing harm to a fetus,” which theoretically has a much larger definition. And these same proponents are saying that since abortion is legal, the state cannot make a lawful act a crime. Thus, there is no way the law can be about abortion.

But given that South Dakota has the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, the implications of this piece of legislation are serious. Will it take the murder of an abortion provider in South Dakota to test this law, should it be enacted? What will the proponents of the bill say, then?

"The bill in South Dakota is an invitation to murder abortion providers," says Vicki Saporta, the president of the National Abortion Federation, the professional association of abortion providers. Since 1993, eight doctors have been assassinated at the hands of anti-abortion extremists, and another 17 have been the victims of murder attempts. Some of the perpetrators of those crimes have tried to use the justifiable homicide defense at their trials. "This is not an abstract bill," Saporta says. The measure could have major implications if a "misguided extremist invokes this 'self-defense' statute to justify the murder of a doctor, nurse or volunteer," the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families warned in a message to supporters last week.

But then again, abortion foes have been so successful in South Dakota, that there are no abortion providers permanently based in the state. Not a huge pool of people left to harm.