The 2021 South Dakota legislative session begins on January 12, 2021
The South Dakota Catholic Conference opposes SB 190, a bill that introduces the concepts “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and “Two-Spirit” as statutory categories into South Dakota’s employment, business, education, and public accommodations laws. SB 190 does not propose to define this terminology. Every single human person, based on his or her innate dignity as a Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports the passage of HB 1247, a bill to safeguard fundamental rights of conscience for healthcare providers. No medical practitioner should be forced to choose between their conscience and their vocation to heal and care. As Pope John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), “to Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports the passage of HB 1248, a bill that requires facilities to report to the state department of health the total numbers of embryos created, stored, and destroyed each year. At the moment of conception, a new human life exists. Each life is an unrepeatable wonder, Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports the passage of SB 183, a bill that would void certain contracts that require a woman to undergo an abortion. Some contracts in South Dakota, such as ones whereby a woman agrees to become pregnant and bear a child for some other person or persons Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports the passage of Senate Bill 177, a bill that aids parents who choose to educate their children consistent with South Dakota’s “alternative education” statute. These provisions apply to parents who choose homeschooling, micro-schools, many remote learning options, tutoring, or in the numerous small community- Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports Senate Bill 175, a bill to ensure South Dakota’s tax-credit K12 scholarship program is open to all children meeting need-based qualifications, regardless of age. Program criteria currently restricts some students’ entry in the program to certain grade-levels, which makes some otherwise income-qualifying families ineligible. Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports the passage of House Bill 1217, a bill that provides for fairness in sports, ensuring girls and women will not be required to compete against boys and men in athletic activities. By aligning state law with the natural law, House Bill 1217 upholds and respects Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports House Bill 1201, a bill that would give local governing bodies the ability to prohibit video lottery casinos within a local jurisdiction. While games of chance are not intrinsically evil or unjust, gambling becomes morally unacceptable when it goes beyond recreation and deprives people of Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference opposes the passage of Senate Bill 166, legislation which would alter South Dakota criminal law to recognize “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and “Two-Spirit” as statutory categories. Senate Bill 166 does not propose to define this terminology. The Church abhors harm done to any person through Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports Senate Bill 126, is a bill that would ban the creation, buying, or selling of obscene dolls that look like realistic children. Building onto state laws that ban child pornography, Senate Bill 126 bill makes manufacture or sale of these obscene materials a Class Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports House Bill 1130, a bill to ensure a woman seeking a chemical (pharmaceutical) abortion is provided reliable information on how she may “discontinue” that abortion. Chemical abortions are conducted through a several-step protocol, whereby a woman will take multiple drugs in sequence, with several Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports House Bill 1114, a bill that closes a loophole in the statutory definition of “abortion.” Currently in South Dakota law, an abortion “terminates the pregnancy of a woman.” However, for a woman pregnant with multiple children, it is possible to abort one but not Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports House Bill 1110, a bill that would ban abortions based on an unborn child having a Down Syndrome diagnosis. Such abortions compound the grave evil of abortion by eugenically targeting certain children. Tragically, some countries in the world have gone so far as to Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports Senate Bill 124, a bill that protects the exercise of religious freedom. The right and duty to seek God and worship Him in accord with one’s conscience is a basic human right and is foundational to our civil liberties. Unfortunately, in the last year, Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports the passage of House Bill 1076, an act to ensure the accuracy of vital records issued by the state. While South Dakota law currently prescribes that a state-issued birth certificate is to record a person’s biological sex as observed following birth, some courts have Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic conference supports the passage of Senate Bill 98, which would eliminate the death penalty as a criminal sentence in most cases. The Catholic Church calls for a culture of life, and firmly opposes the death penalty as an unnecessary tool of redress available to our criminal justice Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports the passage of Senate Bill 83, a bill that provides parents with referral information for perinatal hospice programs. These programs seek to establish supportive, comforting environments for fatally-ill newborns and their families. Within these supportive programs, mothers, fathers, and siblings may have precious time to hold and love Read more…
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports the passage of House Bill 1051. All life is precious and deserves the protection of law. HB 1051 would ensure that any newborn infant who survives the horror of an attempted abortion receives the same life-saving medical care as any other infant. It also improves Read more…