• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A bill seeking to prohibit abortions sought because of a fetus's gender was approved Wednesday by the South Dakota House, despite opponents' arguments that such a ban would be impossible to enforce.
• Representatives voted 60-10 to send the measure to the Senate for further debate.
• Supporters said people in some Asian nations are aborting female fetuses because they want sons and the practice could spread to South Dakota.
• The bill's main sponsor, Rep. Jenna Haggar, R-Sioux Falls, said such abortions amount to sex discrimination.
• Rep. Peggy Gibson, D-Huron, tried unsuccessfully to change the bill so it would have said only that the state does not support abortions based on a fetus's gender and discourages such abortions. Her proposed change was defeated on a 55-15 vote.
• Gibson said a ban on abortions based on a fetus's gender could never be enforced because a woman could not be forced to acknowledge that's why she was seeking to end a pregnancy. She said there's no evidence that any woman in South Dakota has ever sought an abortion because the fetus was not the gender she wanted.
• The bill would make it a Class 6 felony, carrying a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $4,000 fine, for a doctor to knowingly perform or attempt an abortion sought because of a fetus's gender. In addition to questions doctors already have to ask women seeking abortions, they also would have to ask women whether they had used a test to determine a fetus's gender and whether the abortion was sought because of that gender.
• South Dakota already requires women seeking abortions to wait at least three days after first seeing a doctor. A 2001 law also requires women to undergo counseling at pregnancy help centers, which discourage abortion, 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

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