SD gov: Bar abortion pills, but don’t punish women for them

WASHINGTON (AP) — South Dakota’s Republican governor is pledging to bar mail-order abortion pills but says women shouldn’t face prosecution for seeking them. Kristi Noem’s stand appears to be in defiance of legal guidance by the Justice Department after the Supreme Court last week stripped away women’s constitutional protections for abortion. The governor is indicating that she’d put in place a plan approved by state lawmakers to restrict the abortion pills. The ruling Friday (June 24, 2022) by the court’s conservative justices triggered abortion bans in South Dakota and elsewhere. But Noem says in news show interviews that doctors, not their patients, would likely be prosecuted for knowing violations of what would be one of the strictest laws on abortion pills in the United States.