South Dakota requires that the patient obtain mandatory counseling from an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center during this time frame.
The state's legislature subsequently passed five laws curtailing the legality of abortion in 2005,[7] including House Bill 1249[8] The majority of a legislative "task force"[9] then issued a report recommending that the legislature illegalize all abortions, which would lead to a challenge of the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade in the United States Supreme Court.
Several members of the South Dakota legislative majority, as well as Governor Rounds, acknowledged that the overt goal of this law, the Women's Health and Human Life Protection Act, was to get the Supreme Court to overturn Roe.
[15] The informed consent materials in South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia given to women seeking abortions include counseling materials that say women who have abortions may have suicidal thoughts or they may experience "postabortion traumatic stress syndrome".
[15] The written informed consent materials in South Dakota say "unborn child may feel physical pain" without specifying any time period during gestation.
Conversely, The Journal of the American Medical Association has published notable work indicating that pain sensors do not develop in the fetus until between weeks 23 and 30.
[15] In 2008, the South Dakota legislature passed another anti-abortion law, this time one that would have banned abortion in all cases except for rape, incest, and the health of the woman.
[21] A referendum to repeal the Women's Health and Human Life Protection Act was placed on ballot for the November 2006 statewide election due to a successful petition drive by the organization South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families.
[12][13][22][23] In 2008, Right to Life of South Dakota gathered enough signatures to put an initiative measure on the ballot.
[12][24] The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester.
[18][19] In Planned Parenthood v. Rounds (2012), the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that a South Dakota law requiring doctors to give patients information about the potential suicide risk in women who have abortions was not unconstitutional.
[17] In 2016, only a small section of the state required women to drive fewer than 40 miles to access an abortion clinic.
[39] out-of-state residents Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019.
[44] On July 9–10, hundreds of abortion rights protesters rallied and marched in Sioux Falls and Rapid City.
[45][46] On July 23, about 100 abortion rights protesters rallied and marched at the South Dakota State Capitol in Pierre.
[12] In October 1999, Martin Uphoff set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, causing $100 worth of damage.