Understanding Amendment G
Amendment G, aka the “Freedom Amendment,” proposes significant changes to South Dakota’s constitution. Before casting your vote, discover the facts and potential impacts on families, individual rights, and healthcare in communities across South Dakota.
Amendment G would ban any State health and safety protections for women getting an abortion in the first trimester, putting women’s health and safety at risk. This amendment incentivizes abortion providers to perform more abortions for profit, leading to hasty procedures and increased risk for errors and complications.
Under Amendment G, abortion providers, who profit from abortions, would be considered physicians and given authority to make medical judgments for pregnant women, including minors. Abortion providers will be incentivized to perform more abortions to increase profits, regardless of the health and safety of the woman seeking care. Furthermore, this creates the potential risk of abortion providers taking advantage of minors in medical decisions.
Amendment G restricts labor protections. Healthcare workers who decline to assist in an abortion could lose their job.
The sponsors of Amendment G admit they are using South Dakota as a testing ground for pushing abortion legislation to other states, assuming this legislation will work for every state in the country and reducing the citizens of South Dakota to test subjects. But this is not simply another piece of legislation that can be easily changed. It is a constitutional amendment, which is extremely difficult to rescind once it is in place.
Amendment G prohibits the State from regulating abortions in the first trimester, including those for minors. Parents will lose their right to make informed decisions about their child’s healthcare regarding pregnancy and abortion.
70% of Americans believe that abortion should be limited. The broad definitions contained in Amendment G provide a loophole for abortions to be performed up to the point of birth.
Amendment G is not just another bill – it’s a proposed change to our state constitution. Once enacted, constitutional amendments are extremely difficult to reverse. Knowing the details of Amendment G and its potential impacts is critical to making an informed vote.
Many of us value individual freedom and believe the government should stay out of private matters.
Individuals should be able to make informed decisions without excessive governmental interference, especially when it comes to private medical decisions between a physician and their patient.
However, Amendment G goes too far by infringing on individual freedoms, putting the safety of minors and women at risk, and paving the way for late-term procedures.