Abortion

What If You Proposed A Mandatory Counseling Bill And No One Agreed To Counsel?

After pushing for a 72 hour wait in South Dakota for women to be forced to go to crisis pregnancy centers before an abortion, no centers have registered to do the counseling.

After lobbying hard to pass a bill to force all women seeking abortions in South Dakota to have to wait 72 hours after visiting a doctor, and obtain counseling through Christian-based crisis pregnancy centers whose goals are to talk women into continuing their pregnancies, it turns out not one of the centers have signed up to counsel women.

Now, no one is quite sure if that means abortion has been effectively made inaccessible or not.

Via the Argus Leader:

No pregnancy help centers have registered with the state in response to the new law requiring a woman to consult with one and wait 72 hours before getting an abortion.

If no center comes forward, will it make an abortion unobtainable in South Dakota?

It’s a question that officials haven’t yet addressed – and it might be a moot point if a promised lawsuit prevails.

One group who oddly enough has not stepped forward to register as a counselor?  Alpha Pregnancy Centers, which pushed for the bill, trained other centers to provide the counseling, has been raising money for defending the bill, and even contributed money to the defense fund personally.

If the bill is not challenged in court, it will go into effect July 1st.  The lack of anyone registering to provide counseling is a pretty sure sign of how positive the anti-choice movement believes the law will never be enacted in the first place.