South Dakota Tribe news

[CattleRMe]

Female Sioux Tribal Leader Ousted For Proposing Reservation Abortion Clinic
Saturday, July 01, 2006


PORCUPINE, S.D. — A Sioux tribe ousted its president for proposing an abortion clinic on the reservation, which would be beyond the reach of South Dakota's strict new abortion ban.

By a 9-5 vote late Thursday, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council determined Cecelia Fire Thunder had pursued the clinic for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation without council approval, and she was immediately replaced.

"The bottom line is the Lakota people were adamantly opposed to abortion on our homelands. The president was involved in unauthorized political actions," said Will Peters, the council member who filed the complaint.

Fire Thunder said the council did not handle the action properly and promised to challenge it.

"It's not about abortion. A lot of them have personal stuff toward me," said Fire Thunder, who had survived two earlier attempts to remove her from office since becoming the tribe's first female president in 2004.

Fire Thunder began proposing a clinic in March, shortly after Gov. Mike Rounds signed one of the toughest abortion laws in the country. It bans abortion in almost all cases and does not include exceptions for rape or incest. The council suspended Fire Thunder in May and also voted to ban abortions on the reservation.

She once worked part-time at a Planned Parenthood clinic in California that performed abortions and said her support for a clinic comes from concern for girls and women who are victims of rape and incest.

"We have a lot of 14- and 15-year-olds getting pregnant, and it did not happen by strangers," she told the council.

Peters said that under Lakota values, abortion is wrong and life is sacred.

Fire Thunder was replaced by Alex White Plume


I just saw this today and recall the discussion we had about South Dakota a month or so ago thought it might be interesting to some.

 

[Cal]

Ya know, she's a pretty good gal and she gives the drunks and deadbeats the hell they deserve. But, she knew this would probably get her ousted and now the good that she would like to do is all for naught. In an all or nothing situation she should have weighed the odds a little closer. I don't favor abortion nor an abortion clinic on the rez that would be the center of conflict for as long as it was open. I have doubts that it would have been used by many local women concerned about the community finding out about having an abortion performed , as there would be a stigma attached.

I'm sure Alex White Plume will continue to push the industrial hemp issue. I don't know what the down side would be to that, because as I understand it industrial hemp cross pollinates and ruins (?) the potency of the illegal drug.

 

[Brad S]

"We have a lot of 14- and 15-year-olds getting pregnant, and it did not happen by strangers," she told the council.

her support for a clinic comes from concern for girls and women who are victims of rape and incest.

If there are in fact "alot of girls getting pregnant" "by rape" they need a police station more than an abortion clinic. Identify and incarcerate sex offenders would improve any community, and it sounds like the rez has a real crime spree going on.

 

[Cal]

"We have a lot of 14- and 15-year-olds getting pregnant, and it did not happen by strangers," she told the council.

her support for a clinic comes from concern for girls and women who are victims of rape and incest.

If there are in fact "alot of girls getting pregnant" "by rape" they need a police station more than an abortion clinic. Identify and incarcerate sex offenders would improve any community, and it sounds like the rez has a real crime spree going on.

There's almost a traffic jam of Ford Expedition police vehicles (taxis, hearse, etc...) running up and down the hiways with their lights flashing the way it is.

The rapes, incest, increasing methamphetamine use, alocholism, et al, can all be directly attributed to liberalism and what happens when the government takes over the role of provider instead of forcing men to step up to the plate and be responsible providers, and not requiring women to rely on a strong and responsible family unit to provide for them and their children.

 

[CattleRMe]

"We have a lot of 14- and 15-year-olds getting pregnant, and it did not happen by strangers," she told the council.

her support for a clinic comes from concern for girls and women who are victims of rape and incest.

If there are in fact "alot of girls getting pregnant" "by rape" they need a police station more than an abortion clinic. Identify and incarcerate sex offenders would improve any community, and it sounds like the rez has a real crime spree going on.

There's almost a traffic jam of Ford Expedition police vehicles (taxis, hearse, etc...) running up and down the hiways with their lights flashing the way it is.

The rapes, incest, increasing methamphetamine use, alocholism, et al, can all be directly attributed to liberalism and what happens when the government takes over the role of provider instead of forcing men to step up to the plate and be responsible providers, and not requiring women to rely on a strong and responsible family unit to provide for them and their children.

Now some of it can be attributated to the problem of alcoholism on the reservation. The government has made them a dependant group. However how does the government quit what they have done for years?? I don't think liberals can be blamed for the governments role in the reservation it's been like that for years and years and years.

Forcing women to rely on strong and responsible family units?? How about encouraging them to educate themselves so they depend on themselves and nobody else?

 

[Cal]

If there are in fact "alot of girls getting pregnant" "by rape" they need a police station more than an abortion clinic. Identify and incarcerate sex offenders would improve any community, and it sounds like the rez has a real crime spree going on.

There's almost a traffic jam of Ford Expedition police vehicles (taxis, hearse, etc...) running up and down the hiways with their lights flashing the way it is.

The rapes, incest, increasing methamphetamine use, alocholism, et al, can all be directly attributed to liberalism and what happens when the government takes over the role of provider instead of forcing men to step up to the plate and be responsible providers, and not requiring women to rely on a strong and responsible family unit to provide for them and their children.

Now some of it can be attributated to the problem of alcoholism on the reservation. The government has made them a dependant group. However how does the government quit what they have done for years?? I don't think liberals can be blamed for the governments role in the reservation it's been like that for years and years and years.

Forcing women to rely on strong and responsible family units?? How about encouraging them to educate themselves so they depend on themselves and nobody else?

The liberalism I'm referring to are "nanny state" policies dating way back and continuing through today that have given the government a role that it should never have had. There's nothing noble or compassionate about the long term havoc and personal loss of purpose bestowed by such programs.

I never said it was wrong to encourage women to get an education and be self sufficient if need be. But to let men take a far lesser role than what should be expected of them is innexscusable, and single parent households aren't really an ideal situation by a long shot. Kids deserve alot better than that.