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4.4.06

Indian Reservation To Offer Abortions

By Auburn Hutton
KNBN-TV

If South Dakota's abortion ban stands, it won't ban them from all parts of the state. The Oglala Sioux tribe president wants to open a women's clinic on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that will offer abortions only if House Bill 1215 becomes law.

"The best solution to abortion is to make sure that women have access to contraceptives, have access to family planning options, and that information needs to be out there at all times where all women of childbearing age have that information and use it."

For those reasons, Fire Thunder wants to open a women's clinic on Pine Ridge, providing women with birth control options and proper health care, and if 1215 passes the clinic would also provide abortions.

"We just want to make sure that something is done for women who make that decision. All we can do is provide that to them, no questions asked. It's their choice. It's between her and God and that unborn baby. And I honor that."

South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long says providing an abortion on the Pine Ridge Reservation is not unlawful because state law doesn't apply to sovereign land. "Roe vs. Wade is a federal law. Pine Ridge is a reservation that is under the jurisdiction of federal laws more than state laws."

But that doesn't mean just anyone can get an abortion. Long says providing and receiving abortions would be illegal if the person performing it and the woman were both non-Indian.

Fire Thunder says she is still looking into the legalities behind opening the clinic, but feels that the Reservation is in desperate need of this type of care.

"We have around 30,000 people living at Pine Ridge, half of which are eighteen and under. So we're safe to say that maybe 8,000 of our residents are age 18 and under and female."

Plans are in place to build a clinic regardless of the outcome of House Bill 1215.