SD Gov.: Bar Abortion Pills, But Don't Punish Women For Them

At issue is so-called telemedicine abortion pills, which have been on the rise in the country since 2000 when the FDA approved mifepristone.

South Dakota's Republican governor pledged on Sunday to bar mail-order abortion pills but said women should not face prosecution for seeking them.

In apparent defiance of legal guidance by the Justice Department after the Supreme Court last week stripped away women's constitutional protections for abortion, Kristi Noem indicated in national television interviews that she would put in place a plan approved by state lawmakers to restrict the pills. The majority ruling Friday by the court's conservative justices triggered abortion bans in South Dakota and elsewhere.

But Noem said 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.