Poll: Majority of South Dakotans oppose total ban on abortion, want voters to make rules

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : After the end of the second trimester, abortion could be regulated or prohibited except to preserve "the life or health" of the mother.
50% : Dale Bartscher, executive director of South Dakota Right to Life, declined an interview request from News Watch but was quoted by the Washington Post recently as saying he was "very interested" in preventing South Dakota residents from accessing abortion in other states.
46% : "If the question was simply 'do you support abortion?'
44% : "That's the reality we're living in right now," said Rick Weiland, whose Dakotans for Health organization plans to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2024 to legalize but regulate access to abortion in South Dakota.
41% : That came on the heels of a national Pew Research Center poll after the Dobbs decision that showed 62% of respondents saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
40% : Julia Hellwege, an associate professor of political science at the University of South Dakota, said that bipartisan agreement is likely attributable to shared distaste for too much government intervention rather than any sort of moral agreement on abortion.
39% : About 100 protesters clashed with police near Lyon Park in central Sioux Falls in response to the Supreme Court's decision on abortion.
28% :In Kansas, a state that former President Donald Trump won with 56% of the vote in 2020, voters on Aug. 2 overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Republican-controlled legislature to tighten restrictions or ban abortion outright, with 59% voting against the amendment.
24% : More: What does Joe Biden's order protecting abortion mean for pregnant South Dakotans?

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