This bill clarifies South Dakota's definition of abortion to specify that it means intentionally ending a pregnancy, while explicitly excluding accidental deaths during medical treatment, miscarriage care, ectopic pregnancy treatment, and procedures to save the unborn child's life or health. The change ensures that doctors providing standard medical care—like treating complications or infections—cannot be prosecuted under the state's abortion law as long as any fetal death is unintentional.
The amendment completely rewrote the bill from regulating life-preserving abortions with specific reporting requirements into a bill that merely amends the statutory definition of "abortion" to reference an existing definition in § 34-23A-1, effectively gutting the original regulatory framework and redirecting the bill's purpose from substantive abortion regulation to definitional cross-referencing.
This amendment converted the bill from its engrossed (working) form to its enrolled (final passed) form by removing legislative markup formatting and adding official signature pages and certification blocks—this is a technical finalization change with no substantive alterations to the bill's abortion definition language itself.
Other amendments
Signed by the Governor H.J. 579
Delivered to the Governor H.J. 534
Signed by the President S.J. 486
Signed by the Speaker H.J. 516
Senate Do Pass Amended Passed, YEAS 31, NAYS 2. S.J. 447
State Affairs Do Pass Passed, YEAS 8, NAYS 1. S.J. 37
State Affairs Scheduled for hearing
First read in Senate and referred to Senate State Affairs S.J. 398
House of Representatives Do Pass Amended Passed, YEAS 60, NAYS 6. H.J. 426
State Affairs Do Pass Amended Passed, YEAS 10, NAYS 2.
State Affairs Motion to amend
State Affairs Scheduled for hearing
House of Representatives Referred to House State Affairs H.J. 294
House of Representatives Prime Sponsor Changed at the Request of the Prime Sponsor H.J. 246
First Reading House H.J. 207
Prime sponsor · Rep.
R
Prime sponsor · Sen.
R
Cosponsors
Do Pass Amended
State Affairs — Do Pass
Do Pass Amended
State Affairs — Do Pass Amended