Wed Feb 9, 2022 – 2:04 pm ESTWed Feb 9, 2022 – 2:28 pm EST
PIERRE, South Dakota (LifeSiteNews) — Republican legislators in South Dakota have refused to consider a bill proposed by Gov. Kristi Noem which would have banned almost all abortions if a fetal heartbeat could be detected, a move the governor has called “unprecedented in the very worst way.”
Gov. Noem had introduced the legislation last month on the same day the 49th annual March for Life took place in Washington, D.C., along with a bill draft which would prohibit the distribution of abortion drugs through the mail. Early signs pointed to the future success of the bills, which together would ban nearly all abortions in the Mount Rushmore State.
However, in a surprise move last week, a Republican-led committee of the state’s House of Representatives refused to grant a hearing for the bill which would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected (or about six weeks gestation), effectively killing the proposed legislation.
Modeled after Texas’ life-saving Heartbeat Act, which prohibits all abortions in the Lone Star State after about six weeks gestation, South Dakota’s law would also have borrowed Texas’
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