On Monday, Legislators introduced HB 1217, which would add a variety of restrictions to the provision of abortion care in South Dakota. We are still going through the content of this bill and will provide a more complete statement once that process is complete.
However, we believe that HB 1217 amounts to an unnecessary restriction on reproductive healthcare in our state. This bill is a government mandate that women seeking a specific medical procedure be required to undergo a particular type of counseling from someone who is not their doctor of choice and is not required to have medical certification of any kind. It is government intrusion into private medical decisions at its worst.