South Dakota court decision threatens abortion rights measure on November ballot
Court Alerts
The South Dakota Supreme Court has reversed a judge's ruling from last month that dismissed a lawsuit aiming to remove an abortion rights initiative from the November ballot.
The court on Friday reversed the order of dismissal and sent the case back for further proceedings. The anti-abortion group Life Defense Fund had appealed Judge John Pekas's ruling that dismissed its lawsuit seeking to invalidate the measure. The group alleged myriad wrongdoing related to petition circulators.
Meanwhile, South Dakota's top election official has an Aug. 13 deadline to inform county auditors of what measures will be on the November ballot.
In a statement, Life Defense Fund co-chair Leslee Unruh said the group is thrilled the court expedited the case and sent it back to the lower court.
“(Measure leader) Rick Weiland and his paid posse have broken laws, tricked South Dakotans into signing their abortion petition, left petitions unattended, and much more. Dakotans for Health illegally gathered signatures to get Amendment G on the ballot, therefore this measure should not be up for a vote this November,” she said.
Weiland said, “This is just an ongoing effort by the Life Defense Fund and the right-to-life lobby to stop and impede voters’ right to weigh in on this measure, and they continue, and have for almost 18 months, to do everything that they can think of, now, to kick it off the ballot.”
Measure backers submitted about 54,000 petition signatures in May. Secretary of State Monae Johnson's office later validated the measure for the ballot.
The measure would bar the state from regulating “a pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation” in the first trimester, but it would allow second-trimester regulations “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.”
The constitutional amendment would allow the state to regulate or prohibit abortion in the third trimester, “except when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
South Dakota outlaws abortion as a felony crime except in instances to save the life of the mother, under a trigger law that took effect in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion.
Abortion-rights supporters have prevailed on all seven statewide abortion ballot questions since the Dobbs decision. Voters in several other states are set to weigh in as well later this year.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.