South Dakotans voted down a ballot measure that would have put abortion rights in the state constitution, instead keeping the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
Amendment G would have made abortion legal in all situations in the first trimester of pregnancy and allowed regulation by the state during the second trimester that was “reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.” In the third trimester, regulation or prohibition by the state would have been allowed, except when a physician deemed an abortion necessary to “preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
The current state prohibition on abortion went back into effect after Roe v. Wade was struck down in 2022. Under that law, all abortions have been banned except when necessary to preserve a pregnant woman’s life.
Voters have overturned state abortion bans in a number of red states since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, but South Dakota is an extremely conservative state. Former President Donald Trump won by 25-plus points there in 2016 and 2020.
The effort to pass the amendment was plagued by legal battles. Dakotans for Health, the group that led the ballot effort, is awaiting a trial against Life Defense Fund, an anti-abortion-rights organization, set to begin in January.
Life Defense Fund first sued Dakotans for Health in June, challenging the abortion petition signatures the organization submitted to the state. A judge dismissed the motion, which prompted Life Defense Fund to file an appeal in state Supreme Court. A state Supreme Court justice kicked it back to a lower court.