A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION, Affirming the Legislature's support of the United States Supreme Court decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
WHEREAS, in January 1973, the United States Supreme Court decided the case of Roe v. Wade, which declared many state laws regulating and prohibiting abortion to be unconstitutional; and
WHEREAS, in his dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Bryon White called this decision, "an exercise in raw judicial power"; and
WHEREAS, from 1973 to 2022, this decision allowed for the legal ending of the life of thousands of pre-born people in this state; and
WHEREAS, in 2021, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a case involving laws restricting abortion in the state of Mississippi; and
WHEREAS, in June 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dobbs case that Roe vs. Wade was "egregiously wrong from the start," thus allowing elected officials and the populace in each state to decide this issue; and
WHEREAS, Associate Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett voted to overturn the rulings of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, restoring to the people of South Dakota and its elected officials the ability to limit abortion as our laws provide:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the Senate of the Ninety-Eighth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, the House of Representatives concurring therein, that the Legislature endorses and supports the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, thus restoring to the individual states the ability to decide this question of public interest as it was prior to the decision in Roe v. Wade.
Adopted by the Senate, January 26, 2023
Concurred in by the House of Representatives, February 27, 2023
_____________________ _____________________ Larry Rhoden Kay Johnson President of the Senate Secretary of the Senate
_____________________ _____________________ Hugh Bartels Patricia Miller Speaker of the House Chief Clerk