Pierre, SD (LifeNews.com) -- Votes Yes for Life leader Leslee Unruh is not letting a second defeat of a state ban on most abortions deter her enthusiasm for pro-life activism. She and other pro-life advocates who worked for Measure 11 plan to reassess their situation and move forward.

After state voters defeated the second attempt at approving a ballot initiative to ban about 99 percent of abortions, Unruh says her group is revising its action plan and looking for a new goal.

She says the organization's office will remain open and her group will look to either pro-life legislation as its next fight or return to the state ballot -- possibly with something less far reaching than an abortion ban.

In an email to LifeNews.com, she explained what happened.

"We were outspent by more than three to one," Unruh said. Our opponents raised over $3 million dollars and just a very minimal amount of that came from South Dakota. While the majority of our campaign was on the ground with 65% of our funding coming from South Dakota."

She said abortion advocates were able to saturate the state with false advertising and, "We just didn't have the early funds to counter their deception."

On the plus side, Unruh said the group was able to get 20,000 more votes for the abortion ban than it did in 2006 and her group has now identified over 167,000 pro-life voters it can use for future efforts.

Unruh won't rule out a third attempt to ban abortions as early as 2010, the next election cycle.

She said the abortion ban failed this year in part because of the uptick in the turnout of Democrats and a higher number of new voters registered by the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the primaries.

Unruh said the group's efforts could include working for better enforcement of existing pro-life laws like informed consent and parental consent to make sure the lone abortion facility, run by Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls, is following those laws.

Related web sites:
Vote Yes for Life - http://www.voteyesforlife.com

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