Did the entire South Dakota legislature go to medical school? No! So they have no business telling a doctor what to tell his/her patients, and they have even less business prosecuting doctors for anything said (or not) during a privileged doctor/patient discussion! This is absolute crap!

Medical knowledge is constantly changing, and doctors are uniquely able to discern fact from fiction when it comes to telling good studies from bad. Yet South Dakota's professional politicians are going to dictate what patients need to hear? I don't think so!!! This is completely insulting to patients and to the medical profession in general. I would move out of South Dakota before I would ever lie to my patients because the STATE told me to. Sounds like we are living in a fascist country, not a free and democratic one...

Is it a good law? Probably not. But you can't ignore the doctors' roll in bringing this about. The doctors performing abortions make money from them. (For some of them, it is essentially their entire practice.) My eye doctor remains dead set against LASIK surgery...but she doesn't do the procedure and makes most of her money off of selling glasses and contact lenses. It's fair to wonder whether abortion doctors wouldn't have the same conflcts of interest.

And, adding more fuel to the "you can't always trust your doctor" fire is the fact that studies have concluded that doctors prescribe medicine based not entirely on scientific studies, but on the marketing items the drug companies give them. That's why a major medical group just reached an agreement with the pharmaceutical companies to get rid of all the free pens, clipboards and other goodies with drug names on them that you're used to seeing all around your doctor's office. If they're concerned about free pens, you've got to wonder how much influence a group like Planned Parenthood has over doctors who perform abortions.

i wouldn't get my knockers in a twist about it emily. they require tattoo 'artists' to inform the minors under 18 with parents permission only.and anyone under 15 can't get a tattoo without the parent present. well, in my state anyway. teh 'artist' must ring off a schpeel about the consequences of a tattoo to the minors.

why is this such a big deal?

Irvingchang -- First of all, comparing informed consent for a tattoo to what SD lawmakers want abortion providers to tell their patients is just illogical. I'm sure the tattoo artists aren't having to tell their customers half-truths or opinions that aren't backed by medical evidence. Do tattoo artists have to tell their customers that getting a tattoo will make them look like white trash or thugs?

Women should not be made to feel guilty by the state for taking control over their reproductive rights. Much less have to be told things that are only opinion, not fact. Are they told that if they continue with the pregnancy that the risks are not only increased suicidal ideations, but poverty, homicidal ideations, child abuse, depression (for both mother and child), drug abuse and child neglect? No, they aren't. Not because these aren't possible side effects to having a child but they are not medically substantiated facts.

Sure, there are side effects to having an abortion, like with any medical procedure, but that doesn't mean that women should be misled. If a woman decides to end a pregnancy, that is her choice; it is her body.

'Do tattoo artists have to tell their customers that getting a tattoo will make them look like white trash or thugs?'

if they don't, they should heck, minors need the parents permission to get their ears pierced.

liberals! they are the type that think condoms should be handed out in high school but anyone who prays to use it should be expelled.

Wow, what a dumb--and random--thing to say, irv. I know you try to get in a dig at liberals every time you post, but that one was way off and really lame. we're talking about abortions in south dakota, in case you were unaware. But since you brought it up...

liberals! they are the type that think condoms should be handed out in high school but anyone who prays to use it should be expelled.

Noooo, that's not what liberals think. But conservatives want to deny kids access to birth control, then force all the scared, pregnant 15 year old girls to have babies they don't want and can't care for.

'...then force all the scared, pregnant 15 year old girls to have babies they don't want and can't care for.'

if they don't want ir can't care for kids, then they should keep their slutty little legs closed.

Isn't a big part of the reason that abortion has become a pseudo-speciality in many places due to the terrorist tactics employed by some "christian" groups out there?

The demand for abortions isn't likely high enough to justify every facility capable of the procedure enduring the risk of bombing, arson, kidnapping and muder that the zealots rain down on doctors and facilities who offer the service, but the presence of "specialists" allows patients to get their needs met while the concentration of patients at a few providers allows the overhead cost of added security to be spread over a larger pool. As a result, the efficiency of the whole system is increased just as it is by specialization in other disciplines requiring special provisions (radiology, surgery, optometry, etc).

Sundown,

You basically say that doctors are getting bribed by drug companies because they get free pens and clipboards. I agree that's a waste of money, but it pales in comparison to the amount of money these same drug companies give to political campaigns. If you think a pen can influence the care you're getting, do you really want to trust the government to tell your doctor what kind of care to give you, when they have been bribed with far more?

Also, you apparently think that doctors would pressure women to get abortions just to make money. Either you have a bad case of paranoia or a bad history with doctors, and either way I am sorry to hear that.

What you call conservatives want kids to think twice before sex......they want them and you to understand that there is a right and wrong way to view sex and that inappropriate sex bears are consequences.

The we have those like you who would reduce teenagers and much of the rest of the population to nothing more than dogs on the street when it comes to sex.

'I know you try to get in a dig at liberals every time you post,'

you noticed, huh? damn! i thought i was being discreet.

'but that one was way off and really lame. we're talking about abortions in south dakota, in case you were unaware'

yeah. SD and how pissed you are that the doctors must say certain things to the little sluts before the procedure. i was comparing this to my state (florida) where tattoos and ear piercings are done on minors only with the parents permission and to juxtapose that with the SD thing. i'm sorry if this juxtaposition makes you look like an assholes.

irvingchang- does this law apply only to minors? I didn't think so, and that's a big difference as compared to Florida tattoo lawas.

Irving, do you have the same disdain for the sexual partners of these pregnant girls as you do for the girls themselves? Or, do you subscribe to the double standard that unmarried sexually active women are "sluts" while unmarried sexually active men are "players"? Because, of course, those girls didn't get pregnant all by themselves, now did they? My anecdotal experience would suggest that the average 15 year old girl gets pregnant by a man who is at least 18 years old. What would you call him?

Under what other circumstances do you believe that a doctor should be required by law to intentionally provide patently false and misleading information to his/her patients regarding the risks of an elective procedure?

Truett,

When you say "think twice before sex", what you mean is, "be stuck with the consequences of having had sex without the intention of conceiving a child." No couple is more reckless with regard to sex because they figure they can just have an abortion, and to suggest that that is the case is ludicrous.

Secondly, who's talking about kids? Most abortion patients are grown women. It may be easier for you to imagine that this is all about unwed pregnant teens who thought it would be fun to spend a little time in the back of their boyfriend's car (and who certainly would have refrained if only that incredibly easy, accessible, and reasonably pleasant option of abortion didn't offer them solace), but that's just not the case. We're talking about adults here- adults who do not generally consider abortion a reasonable argument in favor of unprotected sex.

Third, inappropriate sex? This is the one thing many anti-abortionists are loathe to admit. It's not really the abortion you're against; if you or your daughter or a friend were raped or victimized or otherwise made unwillingly pregnant, or if your fetus tested positive for down syndrome, you would probably turn a blind eye on the whole fetal extraction thing.

What you're actually against is this notion of "inappropriate", "irresponsible", outside-the-bonds-of-marriage sex, and because you're against sex between unmarried partners, and because you consider it to be inappropriate and reckless, you want those people to suffer the consequences that you think they deserve: an unhappy pregnancy and an unwanted child. And somehow you've twisted the whole thing around in your mind in order to convince yourself that banning abortion will somehow encourage people not to have the kind of sex that you don't think they should be having anyway.

And as far as a "right and wrong way to view sex" goes, illustrating sex without marriage as an act reserved for "dogs on the street" is definitely the wrong way.

Irving,

This law does not apply to minors only; it applies to everyone, and most abortion patients are adults.

And tattoos and piercings are added permanently or semi-permanently to the body, making the body abnormal, whereas an abortion removes an unwanted growth of cells, maintaining the patient's normal body, rather than altering it. An abortion is not something that a woman puts on her body and carries around physically for years like a tattoo, and it is medical, not cosmetic.

Your comparison is ridiculous.

And your attitude toward women is disgusting.