South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem responded to the state’s Legislature blocking a pro-life bill, saying it is “unprecedented in the very worst way.”
Noem’s heartbeat bill was modeled after a similar Texas law and sought to ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. The Republican governor first proposed the bill during her State of the State Address, for which she received a standing ovation from state lawmakers.
The bill came before South Dakota’s House State Affairs Committee Wednesday, but lawmakers did not move it forward to a hearing.
“Today was the first time that the Legislature refused to give a hearing to a bill, and they chose to do it on a pro-life issue protecting babies,” Noem said.
A motion to introduce the bill was moved by House State Affairs Committee Vice Chairman Chris Johnson but never received a second and died.
Speaker of the House Spencer Gosch said Noem presented the bill to the Legislature too close to the deadline for introducing legislation.
“There wasn’t a bill rejected today, there was language rejected today,” Gosch told SDPB. “They showed up late to the game, last minute — even last hour type stuff — and it didn’t pass. Simple as that.”
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The executive director of South Dakota Right To Life said the group did not support the bill because it could negatively affect a South Dakota case in federal court.
“Instead of having an honest debate over that and the merits of the bill, instead they chose to not even have a hearing, which is wrong,” Noem said. “It hurts the integrity of the legislative process.”
Noem added that every bill in South Dakota should get a hearing.
“It’s just not how we behave here,” Noem said. “D.C. does stuff like that, not South Dakota. Every bill gets a hearing.”
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Another of Noem’s proposed pro-life bills, which would ban medication abortions through telemedicine and increase the penalty for unlicensed practice of medicine in abortion, was introduced and put forward to a hearing.
