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• Girls Basketball • Region 1A Regional Final • Webster 40, Aberdeen Roncalli 32, OT • Region 4A Regional Final • Elk Point-Jefferson 65, Lennox 38 • Region 7B Regional Final • Lyman 48, New Underwood 44 • Region 8B Region Final • Lemmon 50, McLaughlin 45 •
Lawmakers OK pregnancy help center rules CHET BROKAW, Associated Press
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- Pregnancy help centers that might eventually provide required counseling to women seeking abortions should not be allowed to profit from lining up adoptions, South Dakota lawmakers decided Tuesday. • The Senate voted 26-9 to pass a measure that has already been approved by the House. It will become law if signed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard. • A 2011 law requires women seeking abortions to get 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. • Under the bill passed Tuesday, the centers would be required to refer women to other organizations for adoption services rather than making such placements themselves. • The bill's sponsor, Sen. Al Novstrup, R-Aberdeen, said the requirement would ensure that pregnancy help centers are not biased toward adoption when they counsel women who have sought abortions. A woman receiving the counseling faces a choice of having abortions, giving a child up for adoption or keeping the child herself, he said. • "What we want to do is make that a very neutral place," Novstrup said. • Supporters of the measure have not said whether they believe it will help the state defend the counseling requirement in court. • Abortion rights advocates have said they believe pregnancy help centers will not provide neutral counseling, but instead will pressure women not to get abortions. • Sen. Angie Buhl O'Donnell, D-Sioux Falls, said she was adopted as a child and believes it might be good to have agencies involved in adoptions provide the re (Continued on page 22)
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