FILE - South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court, April 17, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
By: Joshua Haiar
PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – South Dakota’s Republican attorney general is threatening a lawsuit and ordering a national nonprofit to cease and desist “the deceptive advertising of the sale of abortion pills in South Dakota,” but the organization is not signaling that it will stop its advertising campaign.
The ads ask “Pregnant? Don’t want to be?” and provide a link to the website of Mayday Health, a New York-based nonprofit that shares information about abortion pills. The website offers legal and medical support, and links to purchase abortion pills and birth control.
The organization said the campaign started Monday at 30 gas stations across the state and will run for six weeks, but several locations provided by Mayday and checked by South Dakota Searchlight on Tuesday and Wednesday in Fort Pierre, Rapid City, Sioux Falls and Huron did not have the ads.
Mike Rhoades, manager of the Four Hills gas station in Sioux Falls, told South Dakota Searchlight that the ads there were handled by a third-party agency and were taken down because they don’t align with the values of the station’s owners.
“It doesn’t make much business sense to do something that’ll make our customers mad at us,” Rhoades added.
South Dakota law bans abortions, unless the mother’s life is threatened by a pregnancy. State lawmakers also passed legislation in 2022 banning “medical abortion by telemedicine.”
Attorney General Marty Jackley said Wednesday that Mayday Health’s advertisements do not mention the prohibitions in state law, and his investigation “indicates that the company is misleading the public through deceptive information and advice provided in the advertisements.”
“Your advertisement directs South Dakota consumers to resources that insinuate abortion-inducing pills are legal in South Dakota,” Jackley wrote in a cease-and-desist letter.
Mayday responded to South Dakota Searchlight with a written statement.
“Mayday Health spreads awareness that abortion pills are safe, effective, and have been FDA approved for over 20 years,” said the statement from Executive Director Liv Raisner. “This is First Amendment-protected free speech. Mayday is an education nonprofit. We don’t sell abortion pills, we just believe people should know their options.”
Jackley’s cease-and-desist letter said that if Mayday refuses to comply, he “may bring a lawsuit” against the organization “for violations of the South Dakota Deceptive Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act.” That could result in “felony criminal consequences” or civil penalties up to $5,000 per violation, Jackley wrote.
He asked Mayday to notify his office of the steps taken to remedy the situation by Dec. 19.
Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden issued a statement Wednesday praising Jackley.
“South Dakota moms and babies deserve to be protected from deceptive advertising,” Rhoden’s statement said.
The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota criticized Rhoden and Jackley, calling their actions “a politically motivated attack on free speech.”
“This investigation into Mayday Health’s ads is little more than political theater at the taxpayer’s expense,” said a statement from ACLU-South Dakota Advocacy Manager Samantha Chapman.
In 2023, medication abortions accounted for 63% of abortions in the country, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute. The drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly used in medication abortions, are also listed on the World Health Organizations’ list of essential medicines. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an attempt by anti-abortion medical organizations to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s prescribing guidelines for mifepristone.
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