South Dakotans have defeated Initiated Measure 11, the retread abortion ban. The folks who think sex education and moral crusades should be conducted by plebiscite rather than parenting, pastoring, and pedagogy thought that offering a bill with more "exceptions" (or at least a title that emphasized "exceptions") would swing at least a tenth of the folks who voted against Referred law 6 in 2006. Evidently, they did not succeed:

	Yes	No	Total	Margin
2008 #	167518	206477	373995	38959
2008 %	44.79%	55.21%		10.42%
2006 #	148648	185945	334593	37297
2006 %	44.43%	55.57%		11.15%
06-08 # diff	18870	20532	39402
06-08 % diff	0.36%	-0.36%

The supporters of the abortion ban got 18,870 more people to come out and vote in favor of making women second-class citizens. Unfortunately for their dreams of theocracy, they inspired 20,532 more people to come out and vote against the abortion ban. By the numbers, IM11 lost by a larger margin than the 2006 ban. By the percentages, IM11 improved on the 2006 ban by less than four tenths of a percentage point.

Vote Yes for Life had two years to plot and campaign, and they lost ground.

What does this mean?

• South Dakota won't be challenging Roe v. Wade any time soon.
• The 2009 Legislature won't touch abortion.
• Pastor Steve Hickey, who predicted a 53–47 win for IM11, will move his flock to Alaska to join the other End-Timers who want to meet their maker with Governor Palin.
• Church at the Gate won't be able to fund that move to Alaska with whatever stocks it bought in South Dakota oil.
  

For the second election in a row, South Dakotans have stood up for choice. Not by as large a margin as I'd like to see, but by enough for now. I know better than to think we've finally put this issue to bed, since Leslee Unruh has her personal salvation wrapped up with waging her crusade against all other women. But those of us who believe in equal rights for women, in personal autonomy, in letting doctors and not legislators or the sheriff practice medicine—we have shown that we can beat back challenges to the Constitution and to reality itself.

p.s.: Coloradans yesterday  rejected Amendment 48, which would have given fertilized eggs the same rights as human beings, by a 3-to-1 margin. Looks like God will be sucking the oil out from under the Rocky Mountains, too. Good thing we elected a President whose energy plan relies on something other than "Drill baby drill."

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