SD Searchlight-Meghan O’Brien
There’s a new ad campaign promoting abortion pills at dozens of gas station pumps across South Dakota, and state officials said Tuesday they’ll investigate it for potentially deceptive trade practices and possible violations of the state’s anti-abortion laws.
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’s dedicated to educating people about the safety and effectiveness of abortion pills. The group said the campaign started Monday at 30 gas stations and will run for six weeks, but locations checked by South Dakota Searchlight in Fort Pierre and Rapid City did not have the ads as of Tuesday afternoon.
The website offers legal and medical support, and links to purchase abortion pills and birth control.
Mayday Health’s Executive Director Liv Raisner said the group isn’t worried about legal repercussions, despite South Dakota’s near-total abortion ban.
“It’s really important to us that we can absorb the risk of spreading information about safe medication,” Raisner said.
On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden asked South Dakota Republican Attorney General Marty Jackley to investigate the ad campaign.
South Dakota lawmakers adopted an abortion trigger ban in 2005 that took effect in 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Abortions are prohibited in the state, unless the mother’s life is threatened by a pregnancy. State lawmakers also passed legislation in 2022 banning “medical abortion by telemedicine.”
Rhoden’s office said Tuesday in a news release that Mayday’s campaign could be in violation of South Dakota’s anti-abortion laws and “could even be a deceptive trade practice.”
Jackley pledged an investigation.
“All ad campaigns, no matter what the issue, need to follow state laws and fair trade practices,” Jackley said in the release. “We will review these ads and determine if any laws have been broken. If laws have been broken, we will take appropriate action.”
The gas station campaign has already had runs in West Virginia and Kentucky. Mayday Health has also flown airplanes towing messages over the Indianapolis 500 and Big Ten college football games, among other efforts. In July, the Arkansas attorney general sent a cease-and-desist letter to Raisner concerning Mayday’s advertising practices in that state.
The nonprofit aims its campaigns at states that have higher restrictions on abortions. Mayday promotes resources at gas stations to reach people in everyday places with anonymity, Raisner said.
“Gas stations aren’t just places for gas, especially in rural areas,” Raisner said. “They’re community hubs, and it’s really critical to provide health information anonymously at places like gas stations.”
Mayday was founded in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
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.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and that’s why Mayday Health exists, to combat the misinformation,” Raisner said.