PIERRE, S.D., March 22, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds signed four new bills into law Thursday, including one measure mandating that doctors tell the woman that, by aborting her child, a human life ends. The bill stipulates that a doctor must inform the mother in writing and in person, no later than two hours before the abortion, that abortion ends the life of her baby, and “terminates the constitutional relationship women have with their fetuses.”
Among the three other bills is one that mandates, in the event that the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, abortion become immediately illegal in that state, listed as a felony with a maximum of two years prison for an offence.
The third bill, sponsored by Sen. Brock Greenfield, requires doctors to inform parents before a minor child undergoes an abortion. “This seeks to clear up a loophole,” Greenfield said when the bill was introduced last month.
The final bill, sponsored by Rep. Roger Hunt, sets up a task force to study the effects of abortion. “In the 32 years since Roe v. Wade was decided, there’s been a whole body of scientific knowledge developed,” Hunt said of the bill in February. “It would be profitable and very worthwhile to learn and study that, so as the issue of abortion comes before the Legislature in the future, we’ll have good information upon which to make decisions.”
Last month, a bill that would have illegalized abortion in the state was discarded in favor of the lesser bills, signed into law Thursday.
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