PIERRE, S.D. — South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard on Tuesday signed a law requiring women to wait three days after meeting with a doctor to have an abortion, the longest waiting period in the nation.
Abortion-rights groups immediately said they plan to file a lawsuit challenging the measure, which also requires women to undergo counseling at pregnancy help centers that discourage abortions.
Daugaard, who gave no interviews after signing the bill, said in a written statement that he has conferred with state attorneys who will defend the law in court and a sponsor who has pledged private money to finance the state’s legal costs.
“I think everyone agrees with the goal of reducing abortion by encouraging consideration of other alternatives,” the Republican governor said in the statement. “I hope that women who are considering an abortion will use this three-day period to make good choices.”
About half the states, including South Dakota, now have 24-hour waiting periods, but the state’s new law is the first to have a three-day waiting period and to require women to seek counseling at pregnancy help centers, said Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
Planned Parenthood, which operates South Dakota’s only abortion clinic in Sioux Falls, and the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota said they will ask a judge to strike down the measure as unconstitutional. Kathi Di Nicola, of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, said the law would intrude on women’s right to make personal decisions about medical treatment and would require women seeking abortions to receive counseling from unlicensed and unaccredited pregnancy centers that are often religiously motivated.
“It’s not going to do one thing to reduce unintended pregnancy or reduce abortion,” Di Nicola said. “We know women think carefully and consider all their options before making a decision like this.”
Supporters of the measure say the Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls gives women little information or counseling before they have abortions done by doctors flown in from out of state. The bill would help make sure women are not being coerced into abortions by boyfriends or relatives, they said.
