Washington – South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Sunday defended her state’s abortion trigger law that went into effect after the Supreme Court’s decision to withdraw the constitutional right to abortion. He said in an interview with “Face the Nation” that in cases of rape or incest, he does not believe a tragedy to be “a reason to have another tragedy.”
“I think every life is beautiful … And we know a lot more using technology and science than we did 10 or 15 years ago about what these babies suffer from the pain they feel in the womb, and they will continue to make sure. these lives are protected, ”Noem said. “And I just never believed that going through a tragedy or a tragic situation for someone was a reason to go through another tragedy.”
South Dakota is one of 13 states with so-called “trigger laws” in the books, in which abortion would be banned immediately or shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the historic 1973 decision that established the constitutional right to abortion.
The high court ruling Friday that overturned Roe, in a case involving a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, enacted those laws. The South Dakota measure, signed in 2005, prohibits abortions except to save the life of the mother, and prohibits anyone from prescribing a woman drugs that induce abortion. The law is “effective on the date states are recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court to have the authority to regulate or prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy.”
Noem said her state will now work to strengthen resources for women who will now have to carry out their pregnancies, including with more advice on mental health and family services.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on “Face the Nation,” June 206, 2022. CBS News
“I would prefer that we continue to make sure we move forward and that we are putting resources in front of these women and walking beside them, getting them the health care, the care, the mental health advice and the services that they should have. of need to Make sure we can continue to support them and build stronger families in the future as well, ”he said, adding,“ The Supreme Court did its job: it fixed a wrong decision that it made a long time ago. many years and he returned this power to the states, which is how the Constitution and our founders claim it ”.
The court’s decision made it clear that the issue of abortion is one that will now be decided by state elected officials, but it has also paved the way for future legal fights over whether states can impose bans on mifepristone, an approved drug. by the FDA which is used in conjunction with a second drug to induce an abortion during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday in a statement in response to the Supreme Court ruling that states cannot ban mifepristone “based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment on its safety and effectiveness.”
Noem signed a bill in March that restricted access to abortion with drugs requiring women to make at least three trips to a clinic to get the drugs and defended the limits she has imposed.
“It’s something that should be under the supervision of a doctor and it’s something in South Dakota that we’ve made sure happens like that,” he said. “There are certain protections that are kept under the United States Constitution. The rest of these articles are left to the states, the 10th Amendment guarantees that.”
In addition to highlighting abortion pills, the court’s decision also raised questions about whether states banning abortion can penalize companies that have announced they will cover the costs of employees traveling across state borders to obtain an abortion.
Noem suggested he would not prosecute corporations like Walmort or Amazon that have workers in their state and have pledged to reimburse employees who abort elsewhere.
“We will continue to support these mothers, we will make sure that they are protected from any kind of processing that occurs, we will make sure that these babies are recognized and that every life is beautiful, and that we enforce our laws and I will continue to make sure that the people of our state and everything they can talk to their elected representatives will make those decisions closer to home than what we are seeing at the federal level, ”he said. “There is no intention to do that.”
He also said he does not anticipate South Dakota accepting proposals that would encourage residents to report women suspected of seeking or assisting in abortion, such as a law passed in Texas.
“This has never been the conversation in South Dakota, and I don’t anticipate that we will ever do it. We consider privacy very important, we protect our freedom and our liberties here,” he said. “We will make sure mothers have the resources, protection and medical care they need, and we are being aggressive in that.”
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