(AP)- Abortion advocates were given a further setback as South Dakota's abortion law, the subject of a recent US Supreme Court case revising abortion standards, was upheld by a divide panel of the 8th Circuit. Advocates are said to be weighing their options, including an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Some worry however that the high court's balance is much too conservative at the moment to create precedent that is not hostile to women's reproductive rights. "It is certainly a risky move to go to the SCOTUS as it is. At the same time, the ball is in our court, at least with this case, and we can either wait or not," said one volunteer for NARAL, the national women's reproductive rights advocate group.

Justice Kermit Bye was the lone dissenter in the three person panel. He criticized the majority for giving too unreasonable an interpretation of the new standard. "The standard calls for the imposition of reasonable standards. This much is clear," he wrote, also citing an opinion by Justice Anthony Scalia which criticized the court as undertaking to apply reason to a case. "That the concurrence led by Justice Scalia recognized this fact is nonetheless overlooked today by this panel. And by doing so, we today do injustice to the new standard as a Court of first review."