Search Bills

restrict the use of funds for abortion.

This bill creates new state law restricting how public funds can be used related to abortion services. It defines "elective abortion" (excluding cases involving threats to the mother's life, fetal health problems, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, or pregnancies from rape or incest) and "abortion referral," and sets up rules to prevent state money from going to organizations that perform or refer women for elective abortions. The bill appears to be the first section of a larger law that would establish these restrictions in detail.

Denouncing the National Education Association's recent policy to support "the fundamental right to abortion."

This concurrent resolution denounces the National Education Association's policy supporting abortion rights, arguing that South Dakota recognizes abortion ends a human life and that all human rights begin with life. The resolution does not change any state laws but serves as a formal statement expressing the Legislature's opposition to the NEA's abortion stance and affirming the state's commitment to protecting what it calls the rights of unborn children. Multiple sections of existing law are being amended as part of this resolution, though the specific policy changes to those sections are not detailed in the excerpt provided.

add information required to be provided to a woman receiving an abortion.

South Dakota currently requires doctors to obtain informed written consent before performing an abortion, and this bill adds new specific information that must be included in that consent process. Doctors would now have to tell women that the abortion will terminate "a whole, separate, unique, living human being" and explain that the woman has an existing constitutional relationship with the unborn child that will be terminated by the procedure. These additions go beyond the current informed consent requirements to include specific language about the nature of the fetus and the woman's constitutional relationship to it.