The Attorney General has issued a cease and desist letter for Mayday Health, an organization utilizing an ad campaign to link South Dakotans to abortion resources.
After Governor Larry Rhoden asked Attorney General Marty Jackley to investigate the campaign, his office issued the letter Wednesday morning. The full text of the letter can be found here.
Jackley said the campaign violates state deceptive advertising laws and explains the potential recourse.
“There’s really two avenues of consideration for me as Attorney General," Jackley said. "One would be a potential criminal prosecution. Depending on the dollars involved in the advertisement it could be a felony. Or a preliminarily injunction to have the courts order it to be taken down. I go back to the concern with this particular advertisement and website. It’s not just the violation of state law, but the advertisement and recommendation that a pregnant woman not seek medical treatment.”
Mayday’s ads are posted in 20 South Dakota cities. The signs ask if the reader is pregnant, if they don’t want to be pregnant, and provide a web address for the organization. That site links to materials connected to abortion, gender affirming care, birth control and morning after pills.
Jackley said South Dakota law does not prosecute women for obtaining an abortion, including abortion pills this campaign references.
Samantha Chapman is the advocacy manager for the ACLU of South Dakota. She said South Dakotans have a right to truthful information about all medical options available to them.
“I think what’s deceptive are the blatantly false statistics that both Governor Rhoden and AG Jackley used in their press releases when they’re describing the safety of medication abortion," Chapman said. "We know that more than 60% of all abortions in America use medication abortion. It’s an FDA-approved medication that’s been on the market and in use for the past 20 years, and hundreds of studies have demonstrated its efficacy to safely end a pregnancy.”
While this campaign isn’t the only effort to connect South Dakotans with family planning materials, Mayday Health does not provide abortion medication directly.
Instead, the organization acts as a curator, linking resources to those searching for them. Mayday Health did not immediately return a request for comment on this story.
