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• In addition to questions doctors already have to ask women seeking abortions, they also would have to ask women whether they used a test to determine the fetus's gender and whether the abortion was sought because of the fetus's gender.
• South Dakota already requires women seeking abortions to wait at least three days after first seeing a doctor. A 2011 law also requires women to undergo counseling at pregnancy help centers, which discourage abortions, before they can terminate a pregnancy. The counseling requirement, imposed to determine whether a woman is being coerced into getting an abortion, is still being challenged in federal court, where a judge has temporarily blocked it from taking effect.
• Spencer Cody, of Hoven, vice president of South Dakota Right to Life, said blood tests early in a pregnancy can accurately determine a fetus's sex.
• But Heather Smith, director of the American Civil Liberties Union-South Dakota, said it is unlikely women would know the gender of a fetus before the time limit for getting an abortion at Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls, the state's only abortion clinic.
• Rep. Peggy Gibson, D-Huron, said she voted against the bill because South Dakota has no problem with abortions due to fetal gender.
• "It's just a poorly written bill that does not accomplish anything," Gibson said.
• The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights nonprofit whose statistics are widely respected, reports that seven other states already have laws banning abortion based on the gender of a fetus. Such laws remain in effect in six states, but it has been blocked by a court in one.
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