One of my co-workers is volunteering in South Dakota this week. On Election Day, South Dakota voters will decide if they want to keep or reject the ban on Abortion that their legislature passed in the spring. This is what she wrote to me about what it’s like there right now:

“We woke up this morning to find out that the weather outside was in
the teens. We walked to our nearest coffee shop, which also happened
to be next door to the Campaign office. A coffee and an oatmeal later
we walked into the Campaign office for the very first time. They had left
over pumpkin carvings from the pumpkin carving party this past weekend
that greeted us, as they were slowly rotting away.

At noon, we walked through the freezing ass weather to a rally that
was organized by the Campaign. There were plenty of journalists and
cameras (and a Japanese tv crew, weired). After 5-7 people finished
speaking, we were joined by a group of anti-choice people who released couple of
hundred of pink and blue balloons, representing all the “unborn
children killed by an abortion.” It was weired because they came late
and the balloons seem almost like a celebration of our rally than what
they intended.

We then walked over to a busy intersection, where all the Campaign
volunteers stood on all four corners with our No on 6 signs. Some
honked, some gave us the finger. We were there for about 45 minutes.
I think S was going to lose her fingers from frost bites if we
stood there any longer. We finally found good food at a enchalada
joint with the gals from NAF for lunch. The afternoon was filled with
phonebanking…..calls after calls of “can you volunteer with us?” Not
many bites to the call.

The highlight of the day was the forum at University of Sioux Falls.
It was a panel discussion with 9 panelists (5 anti-choice and 4
pro-choice).

I would say 75% of the audience, mostly college kids from the USF,
were anti-choice. Each side was allowed to have 10 minutes for their
opening statement and audience wrote their questions on index cards,
where the facilitator read the questions. There were no direct
interations between the audience and the panelists. This forum by far
was the most depressing, horrifying expereince I’ve attended.
I can’t even empathize with their position. The
scientific evidence DOES NOT work with this audience. The forum was
supposed to be about Referred Law 6, yet it ended up being about
Planned Parenthood and about when life begins. It was a rough night.

It’s rough out here, but I hear that the Campaign is anticipating a
large group of volunteers this weekend from ACLU.

Another day starts tomorrow. Bring on the phone banking!”