Faith & Politics is a podcast from the South Dakota Catholic Conference. Join Executive Director Michael Pauley and Diocesan Chief of Staff Chris Motz, Esq. as they explore a variety of contemporary civic issues through the lens of a classical Catholic moral and ethical framework. Winsome and robust, Faith & Politics ranges from the soul to the state as it seeks to cultivate thoughtful criteria for governing and living well in the 21st century.
South Dakota’s 2023 legislative session marked the first time that state lawmakers had gathered since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its June 24, 2022 decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and restored to the states the ability to set their own public policy on abortion. Host Michael Pauley is joined by Dale Bartscher, the Executive Director of South Dakota Right to Life, for a discussion on how state lawmakers responded to the Dobbs decision, and how South Dakota’s pro-life community is responding to a citizen-initiated amendment that proposes to create an unlimited right to abortion in the state constitution.
9 May 2023
Obscenity and the First Amendment
During the 2023 legislative session, South Dakota lawmakers introduced five different bills that sought to regulate the spread of obscenity, especially by limiting the access of minors to harmful materials. Despite a growing public awareness of the harms caused by obscene material and programs, not one of the anti-obscenity bills made it through the legislature. Michael Pauley is joined by Norman Woods of the South Dakota Family Heritage Alliance to discuss the debate surrounding obscenity laws, the role of the courts and their interpretation of the First Amendment, and the surprising involvement of South Dakota’s public-school establishment in opposing anti-obscenity legislation.
18 Apr 2023
The abortion pill on trial
In the year 2000 the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug mifepristone (also known
as RU-486 or Mifeprex) as part of a regimen for chemically induced abortions.
But on April 7, 2023—late on Good Friday—a federal judge in Texas issued a
preliminary injunction that suspended the FDA’s approval of mifepristone,
pending a trial on the merits of the case. The preliminary injunction was
partially reversed on appeal, but the judge’s opinion in Alliance for
Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA casts a spotlight on the damage that
mifepristone has caused to women and their preborn children. Host Michael
Pauley is joined by Adam Schwend of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America to
discuss the implications of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case,
regarded by many legal experts as the most important abortion-related
litigation since the Dobbs decision.
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