"Boycott" Fails

Rapid City Journal:

Tourism businesses in the Black Hills and Badlands region don’t seem to be feeling the pinch from a boycott threatened earlier this year by opponents of the state’s controversial abortion ban.

Bill Honerkamp, head of the Black Hills, Badlands & Lakes Association, said Monday that travel in the region is equal to or up slightly from last year. He said there isn’t any indication that a threatened boycott has materialized over the 2006 state Legislature’s approval of HB1215, which would ban abortions except when needed to save a pregnant woman’s life.

“We’ve asked motels and other people if this has cost us any business, and we have yet to turn up a single cancellation that’s due to that,” Honerkamp said.

When the state Legislature overwhelmingly approved HB1215 in February, the Women’s Medical Fund, an abortion-rights organization based in Madison, Wis., urged its supporters to avoid South Dakota during their summer travel.

Critics of HB1215, which was signed by Gov. Mike Rounds but has since been referred to a public vote in November, complained about the bill to officials in the governor’s office. They also contacted the South Dakota Tourism Department and regional travel associations. Honerkamp said his association received about 15 e-mails from people saying they would bypass South Dakota because of HB1215.

“When the thing was still fresh and in the headlines, there was some e-mail traffic on it,” Honerkamp said. “Most of it was pretty radical stuff, even bizarre — hate e-mails, almost — saying that they were coming to South Dakota, but now, we could forget that.”