PIERRE, South Dakota (LifeSiteNews) — The South Dakota House State Affairs Committee voted 10-2 Monday to advance legislation that would amend the state’s near-total abortion ban to clarify that life-saving measures are not abortions, to resolve a popular pro-abortion talking point against the law.
South Dakota law criminalizes any surgical or chemical abortion “unless there is appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female.” Abortion is never actually necessary to protect a woman’s life or health, but pro-abortion detractors have claimed the law’s language would still forbid doctors from treating several medical complications that could endanger the lives of pregnant women.
Pro-lifers have long rejected such claims, but to resolve any lingering confusion, House Bill 1257 would amend the law to clarify that it definition of “abortion” does not include “Medical treatment that is provided to a pregnant female and results in the accidental or unintentional death of the unborn child”; “Treatment to resolve a miscarriage”; “The treatment or removal of an ectopic pregnancy”; “The removal from the uterus of a deceased unborn child”; or “Any medical procedure performed for the purpose of saving the life or preserving the health of the unborn child.” It also adds a definition of “miscarriage” as the “spontaneous loss of a pregnancy.”
HB 1257 is not likely to have trouble making its way through the overwhelmingly Republican-dominated state legislature.
Supporters frame the measure as protection against left-wing propaganda efforts. “We should still take that lie off the table and make it resoundingly clear that in the future, abortion does not include ectopic pregnancy management, miscarriage management and the like,” testified Ian Fury, spokesman for Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden.
Yet the state chapter of the far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) inadvertently demonstrated the true aim of the abortion lobby’s complaints regarding so-called “hard-case” exceptions when it argued that the only way to “address all the possible circumstances that someone who is pregnant might face” would be to “repeal the total abortion ban” outright and “make access to medical care the rule, not the exception.”
The data shows that fewer than five percent of abortions are sought for rape, incest, or medical emergencies, despite the abortion lobby’s attempts to use the most emotionally trying circumstances to keep all abortions legal.
While some emergency situations in pregnancy can necessitate treatments that indirectly and unintentionally result in a child’s death, numerous pro-life doctors (including former abortionists) attest that direct abortion is always unnecessary to save a mother’s life, and in fact abortion would often be the worst thing that could be done for the mother in a genuine emergency, as it often takes longer than actual treatment or even delivery, and can introduce new medical complications for a doctor to contend with.
Regardless, every state in the union with abortion prohibitions currently in effect also permits doctors to administer life-saving, non-abortive treatment to pregnant women even if it comes at the expense of a baby’s life.
Pro-abortion activists have long sought to keep abortion debates focused on such situations, to divert attention from the vast majority of abortions that are sought for far less “sympathetic” reasons. They have gotten mileage out of that approach, which has helped defeat pro-lifers in recent state ballot referendums and convinced national Republicans to take a more “moderate” stance on life.