“This bill attempts to make an extreme law—one that does not exist anywhere else in the country, and has already been declared to likely be found unconstitutional—even more extreme.”
Three dozen South Dakota Republican lawmakers have signed onto legislation calling for a “mandatory pregnancy help center consultation” prior to the common medical procedure. A state Senate committee advanced the bill on Friday, and it could come for a floor vote Tuesday, according to the Rapid City Journal.
“The vast majority of this bill has no legal effect and is nothing more than political grandstanding,” Heather Smith, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, said in a statement. “South Dakota politicians are not only attacking Planned Parenthood, but also the women seeking their vital services.”
South Dakota law bans abortion after 20 weeks gestation, restricts insurance coverage of abortion care, requires parental notification, and would outlaw abortion if Roe v Wade were overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Under the bill, counselors at fake clinics would discuss “the physical or psychological risks to a woman posed by an abortion.” Patients would be told a fetus is “a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”
Read the full story at Rewire
