When he addressed the Legislature on opening day of the 2026 Session, Governor Larry Rhoden vowed to work with legislators and Attorney General Marty Jackley “on legislation to stop abortion pills from coming into South Dakota.” But after three weeks of legislating, the only abortion-related bill in the hopper is House Bill 1212, a that would put women who get abortions, by pill or other means, on trial for murder.
South Dakota’s draconian abortion restrictions include a stay-out-of-jail card for pregnant women: “A female who undergoes an unlawful abortion, as set forth in § 22-17-5.1, may not be held criminally liable for the abortion” [SDCL 22-17-5.2]. Legislators added that immunity in 2023 [HB 1220], after the Dobbs court essentially banned all abortions in South Dakota, over the objection of only eight of the most radical right-wingnuts in the Legislature. Yesterday, one of those radical objectors, Representative Tony Randolph (R-35/Rapid City), filed HB 1212 to repeal that immunity [Section 4]. HB 1212 also repeals the classification of fetal homicide as a crime distinct from and warranting a lesser punishment than regular homicide [Section 3] and applies South Dakota’s homicide statutes the same to unborn children as to actual born people [Section 2]. Abortion could thus be charged as a capital offense.
The only exemption from prosecution that HB 1212 leaves for pregnant women and health care providers is for “unintentional death of an unborn child resulting from (1) Lifesaving procedures undertaken to preserve the life of a pregnant mother, if accompanied by reasonable and available steps to preserve the life of the mother’s unborn child; or (2) A spontaneous miscarriage” [Section 2]. Read that language carefully: HB 1212 does not allow an abortion to save the life of a mother. It only excuses the death of a fetus that results from other lifesaving procedures that weren’t intended to terminate the pregnancy and that include active efforts to keep the fetus alive.
Section 2 says this provision supersedes any other abortion laws, including SDCL 22-17-5.1, which supposedly allows abortions to save pregnant women’s lives.
The net effect of HB 1212 is to create the possibility that if a woman undergoes an abortion to save her own life, the state may take her life away.
It’s surprising that, in an election year with hot Republican primaries, we haven’t seen more abortion posturing from Rhoden, Jackley, and other candidates eager for right-wing money and cred. But this first abortion bill of the Session is a real killer.
What a horrible state South Dakota has become.
Once again, frustrated Republicans turn their attention to all things sexual. They just can’t seem to stay out of your bedroom, bathroom, underwear, vagina, uterus… They seem a little kinky to me. MYOB!!!
I assume life insurance policies can then be taken out on fertilized eggs?