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SD law: Women require anti-abortion consultations
The South Dakota legislature today passed a law that would require any woman seeking an abortion to first visit anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)" and report the name of her abortion provider to CPC staff. CPCs are unregulated facilities that are not required to have trained medical personnel counsel women, and are primarily run by private groups that seek to discourage women from having abortions, often by promoting false information. CPCs are also not required to follow standard medical privacy procedures that ensure a patient's medical information is kept confidential. The bill would also require abortion providers to discuss the entire body of research literature related to possible health risks with their patients, even though much of this information may be outdated, irrelevant, false or misleading. The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of South Dakota strongly denounced the law.