Janne Myrdal: Fear And Out Of State Funding Are All Measure 1 Opponents Have

Have you ever played a game of connect the dots in your life? Join me as I show you a real life version of connect the dots that opponents of Measure 1 are using right out of the abortion industry’s playbook.

It is all part of a pattern:  North Dakotans elect legislators, those legislators pass reasonable laws at our request, a big outside law firm comes in and finds a judge to strike down those laws, our elected officials respond with Measure 1, local activists put in their two cents and then Planned Parenthood, which doesn’t even have a clinic in our state, comes in to kill Measure 1 with a million dollars plus.

Why would powerful groups come in to North Dakota to upend the laws and the will of North Dakotans?  It can’t be because they care about end of life care or IVF as they don’t have any genuine interest in either one and the claims regarding these issues have been shown to be groundless.  It’s because they disrespect North Dakota values and want to impose a virtually unlimited right to abortion on our state. These organizations and all that support them, continue to thumb their noses at the people of North Dakota, including our highly respected state legislators.

Measure 1 does not prevent in vitro fertilization; it does not impact end-of-life decisions; it does not affect the care of women who experience ectopic pregnancies; it does not ban abortion. Those scare tactics are right out of abortion lobbyist’s playbook to divert people’s attention to what they are really trying to achieve.  Measure 1 is an amendment that would protect North Dakota from outside special interest groups and safeguard our current laws.

Let’s start with Steve Morrison, a law teacher at UND only six years out of law school and not even licensed to practice in the state. Morrison argued to uphold a judge’s decision in North Dakota creating a practically unlimited right to abortion. He then showed up in “neutral” clothes to present to directors of long-term care facilities, in which he showcased end-of-life scare tactics to the people who protect the elderly.  They saw right through his intention.  Following Morrison’s lecture, one facility did its own homework and concluded, “We believe these implications about threats to making end-of-life plans, including advance directives, are unfounded and are, in fact, a smokescreen for what opponents of Measure 1 really want to achieve: a constitutional guarantee of unlimited abortion for North Dakotans.”

It is worse than just disrespect.  It is hostility.

We can see that coming from Dr. Kirsten Cain, a leader with North Dakotans Against Measure 1, who tweeted, “ND Lawmakers make the Taliban seem absolutely feminist.” Cain is also using #NDTaliban to accentuate her hostility to our elected officials and our values.

Does Dr. Cain understand the level of oppression that the Taliban have instilled regarding women and children’s rights? They are terrorists aligned with ISIS, Hamas and Al-Qaeda who are beheading children and ripping babies from their mother’s arms and stomping on their heads.

That Taliban?

A recent Gallup Poll noted that North Dakotans trust their legislators more than any other state in the nation. Yet, Dr. Cain says they are worse than the Taliban. Obviously Dr. Cain has not gotten that memo.

Then there is Jane Ahlin, an English teacher who has never seen an abortion regulation she didn’t criticize. She has donated a whopping $652 to NDAM1 and has substantiated the remainder of her support by using her column in the Fargo Forum as a personal advertising agency to convey the baseless claims of the opposition.

The final dot shows that Planned Parenthood groups, all of which are based out of state, thus far have contributed $1,059,400 – a stunning 95% of all contributions received by North Dakotans Against Measure 1. Contributions to kill Measure 1 were received from Planned Parenthood organizations in California, Illinois, Michigan, Utah, Montana, Vermont and Minnesota.

Why are Planned Parenthood groups contributing 95% of the funds raised by our opponents? Because Measure 1 stops abortion activists from imposing an unlimited right to abortion under the state constitution.  Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, does not care one whit about North Dakota values or issues like end-of-life care and IVF. They care about abortion, and the more of them the better. They are fighting to uphold a court ruling that could eventually invalidate all the pro-life laws on the books in our state. Measure 1 stops them, which is why it’s so critical that voters pass it.

ND Choose Life reported raising $593,601, with all but $2,700 coming from donors in North Dakota. All told, NDAM1 raised $1,118,063 but only $57,013 in reported contributions (5%) came from North Dakotans.

Advertising reports from the Federal Communications Commission show that NDAM1 has booked television commercials that began running today, spending nearly $500,000. North Dakotans should realize when they see the false charges about Measure 1 on television or in the news that this is all coming from the out-of-state abortion industry. They are going to make all kinds of false claims that are designed to scare voters into opposing Measure 1 which is on the ballot to protect our existing laws. We hope that every time a North Dakotan sees one of the NDAM1 commercials they think ‘out of state abortion industry’ and change the channel.

What happens when prolife laws are overturned? Our western neighbor, Montana, provides one example. Special interest groups have filed lawsuits to overturn laws protecting life, conscience and parental involvement. In Montana, it is now unconstitutional to limit taxpayer funding for elective abortions or even provide parental notice when a minor undergoes an abortion.

Measure 1 would apply a constitutional backing for North Dakota’s current laws and would dissuade future court battles. Without constitutional backing, we are sending abortion lobbyists an invitation to open the litigation floodgates and overturn our existing laws.

North Dakotans do not like games. We like the truth.  It is time for North Dakotans to stand for the truth and to protect our commonsense pro-life laws.  North Dakotans must go to the polls (or absentee ballot vote) and Vote Yes on Measure 1 to assure that our values remain North Dakota values, and not values driven by out-of-state abortion lobbyists and the abortion industry giants.