Why a South Dakota mother leaves state for prenatal care
Danielle Campoamor drives 86 miles a week to visit her obstetrician in Minnesota.
At 32 weeks pregnant, the South Dakota mother of two is new to the anti-abortion state in which she is not comfortable giving birth.
In the face of Amendment G, which puts abortion access in the hands of state voters next week, Campoamor is choosing to speak out.
“This is a way to feel some semblance of control for my future and my family’s future,” she said.
So she drives 43 miles east on Highway 34, visits a new OBGYN at the Pipestone Medical Center and drives 43 miles back home to Madison. She will continue to do this weekly for the next two months, until she is home safely with a healthy baby girl by Christmas.
“South Dakota used to be my safe, happy place,” said Campoamor, 37, who recently left Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and children to serve as a needed caregiver for her 88-year-old grandfather.
He was diagnosed last year with Alzheimer’s and has since had two bad falls.
But, much of her family is here, and she fondly remembers visiting South Dakota every summer growing up. “I loved going to the farm, smelling the cows, chasing after frogs and pheasant hunting,” she said. “But now as a pregnant mother of two, I have to ask myself, ‘Is this really a safe place anymore?’ ”
Pregnancy-related deaths on the rise in South Dakota
Since her childhood visits to South Dakota, women’s reproductive rights have changed. Although South Dakota’s current abortion ban is intended to preserve the lives of children, the state’s infant mortality rate continues to lead the nation.
According to the South Dakota Department of Health, out of every 1,000 live births in 2022, 7.8 babies died within the first four weeks of delivery.
Pregnant mothers like Campoamor have been at risk, too.
The Child Death Review and the Maternal Mortality Review committees also reports that, out of 24 pregnancy-related deaths in 2022, 20 were preventable.
This is why Campoamor drives.
“Chances are this will be a healthy birth,” she said. “But the only thing we know for sure about pregnancy is that it’s completely unpredictable.”
Ten years ago, Campoamor lost a twin 20 weeks into her first pregnancy and was in the hospital with a blood infection. A few months later, she delivered her first-born son along with the remains of his sibling. She asks: What would’ve happened if she was enduring that loss today?
“I don’t know if my body will let me down as it has before,” she wrote for The Nation Magazine last month. Campoamor covers female reproductive rights for national outlets and is a former NBC and Today reporter. “But now I am one severe pregnancy complication away from landing in a South Dakota emergency room, where a doctor is too afraid to help me because of the state’s anti-abortion policies.”
She combats her worry with a plan. Campoamor said she has neighbors and cousins lined up if she goes into labor when her husband is out of town for work, and she’s enlisting drivers if she can’t make the 43-mile drive on her own. She also communicates regularly with her doctor and has discussed with her where to go and who to reach out to in Sioux Falls if she needs immediate care in a larger community.
“These are the concerns that overwhelm my mind," she said.
What would Amendment G mean for South Dakota?
On Nov. 5, voters will decide whether abortion will be legal again in South Dakota.
A vote to adopt Amendment G would legalize abortion in the first trimester.
“We want to live in a world where everyone who is pregnant and having a baby is having a wanted pregnancy, a wanted birth … and a positive future to look forward to,” said Samantha Chapman, ACLU’s advocacy manager in South Dakota, who recently pointed out how Gov. Kristi Noem has touted high birth rates in South Dakota while excluding the state’s national leading statistic in infant mortality.
A vote not to adopt the measure would leave the Constitution as it is: A vague definition of prohibiting all abortions except to preserve the life of a pregnant woman.
“Numerous South Dakota medical professionals agree: We need to (continue to) prohibit late-term abortions, protect mothers from unsafe, unregulated abortions, and protect babies,” said Leslie Unruh and Jon Hansen, co-chairs of Life Defense Fund, a nonprofit opposing Amendment G.
Earlier this year, Campoamor interviewed Rick and Adam Weiland, co-founders of Dakotans for Health who feel confident that Amendment G can pass next Tuesday, Election Day.
“(Opponents) are looking for anything they can to deny the voters the right to decide,” Rick Weiland told Campoamor for British online newspaper The Independent.
According to a statewide poll co-sponsored by South Dakota News Watch last month, the outcome may be too close to call, with 50% of voters in support of the measure and 47% opposing it. As of two weeks ago, 3% were still undecided.
“We’ve been saying from the very beginning of this campaign that the more people learn about how extreme Amendment G really is, the more they will reject it,” said Caroline Woods, a spokesperson for Life Defense Fund, last week.
'I just want a healthy baby'
But Campoamor said she simply wants to introduce another great-grandchild to her grandfather and wants to continue to live a healthy life, even if she has to be in South Dakota with her family right now.
“I’m not looking to terminate my pregnancy in South Dakota,” she said. “This is an extremely wanted pregnancy. But I am already a mom to two boys and would like to keep living my life. Here it seems the only time my life would matter is if I were dangerously close to losing it. Do I want to roll that dice? How close to death am I willing to be?”
If enshrined in the state Constitution, Amendment G would supersede the state’s 2005 trigger ban that went into effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The South Dakota Attorney General’s office has stated that, since it is a constitutional amendment, the state legislature cannot alter the measure if it is enacted.
