Dec. 10, 2025:
The ACLU of South Dakota says Governor Larry Rhoden’s request for an investigation into an advertising campaign that they say is “educating people about the safety and effectiveness of abortion pills” is a politically motivated attack on free speech.
Samantha Chapman, ACLU of South Dakota advocacy manager, said (Dec. 10, 2025) despite the state’s near-total ban on abortion, the governor can’t prevent information about abortion from being shared in the state. She says the “targeted attack against information about abortion violates our First Amendment right to share and receive information and puts a target on any other organization or individual who dares to share information that the governor disfavors.”
Chapman said attempts to restrict information about abortion will only further isolate pregnant South Dakotans seeking to educate themselves about medical care. She called Rhoden and Attorney General Marty Jackley’s investigation into Mayday Health’s ads “little more than political theater at the taxpayer’s expense.”
Chapman said the United States Supreme Court considers speech about abortion protected speech under the First Amendment and has reaffirmed that position multiple times since Bigelow v. Virginia in 1975.
Mayday Health is non-profit organization that provides education about medication abortion and how to access it in the United States. It does not sell or provide the pills used to perform a medication abortion.
Meanwhile…..
South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley has sent a letter to Mayday Health (Dec. 10, 2025) ordering the company to immediately stop what his office calls “the deceptive advertising of the sale of abortion pills in South Dakota.”
The letter also said the state may bring a lawsuit against the company if it does not comply.
Abortions are banned in South Dakota except for specific, extenuating circumstances. State law also prohibits the administering or procuring of any medicine, drug or substance to perform an abortion within state boundaries.
Jackley said his investigation indicates that the company is misleading the public through deceptive information and advice provided in the advertisements. He said Mayday Health’s advertisements:
- don’t list the prohibitions in state law,
- direct those reading the ads to resources that insinuate abortion-inducing pills are legal in South Dakota, and
- urge women not to seek medical care after taking abortion pills to keep their abortion a secret.
Jackley said based on the information his office has found, it appears that Mayday Health’s business practices “constitute a deceptive act or practice under SDCL Ch. 37-24, the South Dakota Deceptive Practices and Consumer Protection Act.”
If South Dakota does file a lawsuit, Mayday Health could face felony criminal consequence or civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.
Jackley began an investigation into the advertisements at the request of Governor Larry Rhoden.
Dec. 9, 2025:
South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden has sent state Attorney General Marty Jackley a letter asking him to investigate an advertising campaign for abortion pills that’s showing up in gas stations around the state.
Rhoden says Jackley has agreed to pursue the investigation.
According to a report by KELOLAND News, Mayday Health is advertising abortion pills at 30 gas stations in 20 South Dakota cities. Rhoden says the ad campaign is potentially in violation of South Dakota law or could be a deceptive trade practice.
Abortion became illegal in South Dakota, except to save the life of a pregnant mother, following the United States Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturning the legal right to have an abortion. Also in 2022, South Dakota lawmakers and the Noem-Rhoden Administration took things a step further when they banned chemical abortions via telemedicine by passing and signing into law HB 1318. Then in 2024, South Dakota voters rejected a Constitutional Amendment that would have legalized abortion in the state.
Rhoden says his team will work with Jackley’s team “to assess whether this issue needs to be addressed with further legislation.”
Rhoden says “South Dakota has the most pro-life laws in the nation” and he’s proud of that fact. He says the advertising campaign “threatens the lives of children yet to be born in our state, and it also threatens the health of South Dakota mothers, as chemical abortions are four times as likely to cause a mother to end up in the emergency room.”
Jackley says, “All ad campaigns, no matter what the issue, need to follow state laws and fair trade practices.” He says his office will review the ads and determine if any laws have been broken. If so, the Attorney General’s Office will take appropriate action.
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