South Dakota Legislature on Abortion: Still Stupid Tyrants

Last updated on 2012.02.01

We may be safe. The deadline for South Dakota legislators to submit individual bills was Thursday. 469 bills are in the hopper, and there is no fetal pain or fetal personhood bill. We've dodged the worst certain ignorant misogynists could foist on us, but we still must contend with three abortion-related bills. One sneaks in more restrictions, one tinkers with existing restrictions, and one challenges the tyrants:

1. House Bill 1185 comes from a passel of Tea Partiers who hate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act but are happy to cite it to justify making it harder for women to get insurance coverage for abortion. Even though abortion is basic health care, Representative Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapids) wants to prohibit insurers from covering abortion. HB 1185 exceeds the parameters of federal restrictions on abortion coverage: whereas the PPACA allows insurers to give straight-up coverage for abortions carried out "in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the woman would be endangered," Rep. Hansen's bill says regular policies can't cover abortion unless the woman is going to die. Women who want "elective abortions" must pay a supplemental premium, which actuarially speaking, means women may end up paying something pretty close to the full price of abortion services themselves. As an added bite out of your privacy, if you get insurance from your employer, you get to tell your boss each year whether you are choosing or rejecting abortion coverage.
2. The best Misogynist-in-Chief Roger Hunt (R-10/Brandon) could muster this year was HB 1254, a revision of his judicially ridiculed and enjoined coercive counseling bill from last year. Rep. Hunt gets rid of some of the language that Judge Karen Schreier found indefensible (like talk of the woman's "desire" rather than "will"). It drops the definitions that required physicians to review and discuss with women every article published on abortion and associated risk factors published since 1972, even the bogus ones. And HB 1254 makes it a Class 2 misdemeanor for anti-abortion "counselors" to release any information obtained in their sessions with women seeking abortions. But the bill leaves intact the oppressive 72-hour waiting period and the mandatory unlicensed counseling that hopes to make abortion practically impossible in South Dakota.
3. Some people are trying to do the right thing. HB 1150 tells South Dakota's coercive counseling centers that they can't engage in false advertising... you know, like saying you offer "comprehensive services" when you don't directly provide abortions, emergency contraception, or referrals for such services. Rep. Peggy Gibson (D-22/Huron) and Sen. Angie Buhl (D-15/Sioux Falls) are the lead sponsors on this bill. They are joined by six House Democrats and one Senate Republican, Deb Peters of Hartford (oh, is that Lora Hubbel I hear announcing her primary challenge?). Come on, Legislature! You're all about truth in advertising, right?

Previously, the House killed HCR 1001, which simply sought to promote awareness of reproductive rights. Alas, the majority in Pierre remain committed to throttling women's rights and banning abortion... which only makes abortion more frequent and more dangerous.

Update 2012.02.01 06:25 MST: RCJ's David Montgomery confirms that we won't be talking about fetal pain in the 2012 Legislature. Anti-abortion activists apparently have too much on their plate defending South Dakota's existing violations of women's rights. Montgomery also gets Leslee Unruh on record saying that the truth in advertising called for in HB 1150 would put all pregnancy centers, including hers, out of business. Yahoo! Do pass!