KeloLand television is reporting that Oglala Sioux tribal council has voted to ban abortion on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and to "suspend tribal President Cecelia Fire Thunder on grounds she asked for donations for an abortion clinic without the council's OK." Fire Thunder will be suspended for 20 days until an impeachment hearing can take place.
After South Dakota's legislature voted to ban abortion, Fire Thunder (a former abortion clinic worker ) received a fair amount of press coverage after promising to open an abortion clinic on her tribe's reservation. Jill Stanek did some basic research and it appeared fairly obvious that Ms. Fire Thunder had a nice little fund raising scam in the works. Even though Fire Thunder had a somewhat checkered past as the tribe's leader and South Dakota's attorney general noted that abortions performed by a non-tribal member on another non-tribal member on tribal land would still be in violation of state law, pro-choice individuals and groups still showed strong support for Fire Thunder.
Alternet did a long story and interview with Fire Thunder and a number of pro-choice bloggers gave financially and/or encouraged their readers to financially support Fire Thunder's effort.
Some pro-choice bloggers even had a pro-choice bingo event where they raised $500 and a portion of that went to Cecelia Fire Thunder. I wonder what Fire Thunder did with the bingo money? A nice dinner? Some furniture? A weekend trip, perhaps?
What did P.T. Barnum supposedly say about suckers?
This woman deserves to go down in screaming flames for scamming people, but then the people deserve to be scammed. She and her victims -- the financial dupes, anyway -- richly deserve each other.