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 all unborn children in the womb, so that a child is killed but the pregnancy continues with at least one other child. This bill would change the definition to close this loophole, and legally define an abortion as the “intentional termination of the life of a human being in the uterus.” House Bill 1114 aligns the statutes with what abortion actually does, and has positive and wide-ranging impact in several other provisions of South Dakota law touching on abortion.
Categories: 2021 Session