I was afaid this would happen.
(Thanks for kind words. Hope I feel better soon, too.)
Tribal council outlaws abortion President suspended for alleged donations
NESTOR RAMOS
nramos@argusleader.com May 31, 2006, 1:55 amThe Oglala Sioux tribal council banned all abortions on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and suspended President Cecelia Fire Thunder on Tuesday, charging that she solicited donations on behalf of the tribe for a proposed abortion clinic without the council’s approval.
“It was unauthorized political activity,” said Will Peters, a tribal council representative from the Pine Ridge district. “It’s just a matter of failing to communicate not only with the governing body but with the people that she was elected to serve.”
Peters made a motion to suspend Fire Thunder indefinitely, and when that failed, voted to suspend her for 20 days until an impeachment hearing could take place. That motion passed.
“This whole thing was an ambush,” Fire Thunder said, adding that she never solicited donations and never was asked whether she had actually accepted any money.
Peters said any money donated to the tribe for the clinic would be returned.
Fire Thunder said the idea never was to open a clinic that performs abortions - she never used the word “abortion,” she said - but rather to open a women’s health facility that would provide family planning information and emergency and traditional contraceptives.
“Women need services. Women need support. Right now on the Pine Ridge reservation, there’s very little support for women who have been raped,” Fire Thunder said.
“If that’s the way it was presented to people in the first place, I think she would have been OK,” Peters said. “Her stand, by what we read and what we hear from all accounts, was to support abortion. I’ve never seen such a turn-around.”
Some in the tribe were outraged when Fire Thunder, responding to Gov. Mike Rounds’ signature on a bill that would ban most abortions in South Dakota, said she would work to open a Planned Parenthood clinic on the reservation, beyond the reach of state law. Many believe abortion to be against Lakota values.
Planned Parenthood issued a press release thanking Fire Thunder, but said it had no plans to open a clinic in Pine Ridge or anywhere else in South Dakota.
Today, the tribe banned abortions on the reservation.
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