By Frank Hornig, 2/13/06, Spiegel Online
South
Dakota has passed the most restrictive abortion law in the United
States. But much more is at stake. The rural state has become only the
most recent front line in an ongoing religious war in the US.
Phillips
Avenue in Sioux Falls, South Dakota — located in the heart of the flat
Midwestern prairie — is a sleepy thoroughfare. There are a few
businesses along the street, a couple of restaurants, and a souvenir
shop which struggles to attract customers.
But
last Thursday, this dreary provincial boulevard became the dividing
line separating two irreconcilable camps in the city — and it became
the most recent front line in an ongoing war that bisects the entire
nation. For about an hour, opposing groups of demonstrators swore at
one another across the street, launching a new round in an old dispute
that has long since expanded into a cultural battle — a bitter fight
that has raged for decades between conservatives and liberals, devout
Christians and women’s rights groups. [read more]