This story is part of an investigative series and new documentary, The A-Word, by The Independent examining the state of abortion access and reproductive care in the US after the fall of Roe v Wade.
On May 2, 2022, Rick Weiland — longtime Democrat and former candidate for Congress — and his son Adam were driving home from South Dakota’s state capitol. The father-son duo had just successfully filed the required number of signatures to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot, when the Supreme Court’s draft of its forthcoming Dobbs decision leaked.
“We immediately started talking about it,” Adam, who left the private sector shortly after Donald Trump became president to join his father in politics, tells The Independent . “Then we got our attorney on the phone.”
Aware of the state’s trigger law that would automatically ban abortion if and when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade , the pair appreciated the gravity of the situation. But it wasn’t until two women — one Democrat, one Republican — urged them to do something about it that they realized what steps they personally needed to take.