PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – South Dakota lawmakers advanced a bill on Friday at the Capitol in Pierre aimed at stopping abortion pills and other abortion-related items from being advertised and distributed in the state.

The House State Affairs Committee voted 10-2 to send the bill to the House floor. The bill would make it a felony to knowingly dispense, distribute, sell or advertise abortion pills and any other “article” or “instrument” intended to be used for an abortion. It would also allow the state attorney general to seek civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, with payments deposited into the “life protection subfund,” used to defend the state’s anti-abortion laws.

Republican Attorney General Marty Jackley, who’s seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. House in the June primary election, said the measure gives prosecutors tools to target out-of-state providers and marketers, and to intercept shipments without requiring proof that the drugs reached a pregnant person.

“We are not able to do that under the existing law,” he said, because the drug “has to go to a pregnant female.”

The bill empowers action if the attorney general “has reason to believe that a person is engaging in, has engaged in, or is about to engage in a violation.”

Opponents, including the South Dakota State Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, said the bill would chill medical care, particularly miscarriage management and labor induction using drugs affected by the bill, and invite intrusive investigations into private health decisions.

Justin Bell, on behalf of the medical association, said even in cases of legal, non-abortion uses, manufacturers and distributors of drugs affected by the legislation may say, “I don’t know what people are going to use this for. I am not taking the liability of a potential civil action. I’m not taking a risk of getting convicted of a class six felony because of it.”

The bill comes as Jackley is in court trying to stop advertisements on gas station pumps around the state, asking, “Pregnant? Don’t want to be?” The ads from New York-based Mayday Health include a link to the group’s website, which provides information about the availability of abortion pills.

South Dakota lawmakers adopted an abortion trigger ban in 2005 that took effect in 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned abortion rights previously guaranteed by the Roe v. Wade decision.

In 2023, medication abortions accounted for 63% of abortions in the country, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute. Mifepristone and misoprostol, used in medication abortions, are listed on the World Health Organizations’ list of essential medicines. In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an attempt by anti-abortion medical organizations to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s prescribing guidelines for mifepristone.