South Dakota campaign submits signatures for right to abortion amendment, may join three other states voting on abortion in 2024

In South Dakota, a campaign supporting a ballot initiative to provide a state constitutional right to abortion submitted 55,000 signatures on May 1, 2024. If at least 35,017 of the submitted signatures are validated, the initiative will be certified to appear on the ballot for Nov. 5, 2024.

Voters in 12 states may decide on abortion in 2024, with ballot measures confirmed for three states—Florida, Maryland, and New York. Measures have been proposed in nine other states, including South Dakota.

The South Dakota measure would provide a trimester framework for regulating abortion in the South Dakota Constitution:

• During the first trimester of pregnancy, the state would be prohibited from regulating a woman’s decision to have an abortion.
• During the second trimester of pregnancy, the state may regulate abortion, but “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.”
• During the third trimester of pregnancy, the state may regulate or prohibit abortion, except “when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life and health of the pregnant woman.”

Rick Weiland, chairman of Dakotans for Health, the campaign supporting the initiative, said that the framework for the amendment was based on the precedents established in the U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, which was overturned in 2022 following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Weiland said, “We took the language from Roe vs. Wade. It’s based on three trimesters as was Roe. It says pretty much the same thing.”

Weiland said the amendment will allow for abortion access to be restored in the state. He said, “The Freedom Amendment is about empowering individuals to make deeply personal decisions about their own bodies and futures. Every woman deserves the freedom to choose whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy.”

In South Dakota, abortion is banned except to save the life of the mother. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, a 2005 law passed by the South Dakota State Legislature went into effect.

The Life Defense Fund is opposing the initiated amendment. The campaign said, “The proposed South Dakota Abortion Constitutional Amendment would be one of the most extreme abortion laws in the nation. The Abortion Amendment would legalize painful, late-term abortion, all the way to the point of birth.”

If the initiative is approved for the ballot, it will join two other measures currently on the Nov. 5, 2024, South Dakota ballot. The current measures certified for the ballot are:

• A constitutional amendment that would change male pronouns in the constitution to gender-neutral terms or titles.
• A constitutional amendment that would provide that the state may impose work requirements on eligible individuals to receive Medicaid benefits.