Palmetto State News

The South Carolina Legislature is determined to pass laws dictating access to medically sound abortions. 

Despite its fetal heartbeat bill being rejected by the federal court earlier this year, South Carolina is rumored to be preparing for another swipe at the highly criticized legislation after Texas passed a similar law.

Mallory Quigley, VP of Communications at Susan B. Anthony List, a nonprofit anti-abortion organization, told Palmetto State News that "unborn children and their mothers have a champion in [Gov. Henry McMaster]."

"We can't predict with any certainty how litigation will play out, [but the governor] and his administration are committed to this worthy fight, and the governors of 20 other states—representing more than 100 million Americans—are standing beside them," Quigley said. "That gives us such hope."

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia have supported South Carolina in a lawsuit filed against them by state Planned Parenthood clinics.

Alabama led the charge, with Attorney General Steve Marshall, writing, “South Carolina’s fetal heartbeat law was struck down in an error-filled district court opinion. Although Planned Parenthood and the other plaintiffs challenged only the law’s regulation of abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, the district court enjoined the law in its entirety – including portions of the law that dozens of other states already have and regularly enforce.

“The district court tread on South Carolina’s sovereign ability to decide for itself the purposes of its legislation, completely ignoring the General Assembly’s clear intent, written in the text of the law, that if any part of the law were held unconstitutional then the remainder would not be invalidated.”

The law regulated South Carolina abortion providers in the case of a detectable fetal heartbeat, usually around six weeks of gestation, which is where Quigley says fetuses "can feel pain well before 'viability.'"  

With few exceptions, abortions would be criminalized in the case that an ultrasound detected a fetal heartbeat. The current Texas law, currently being challenged by the Department of Justice, does not make exceptions in cases of rape or incest. 

Citing Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization—a pending Supreme Court case seeking to determine if banning pre-viability elective abortions is constitutional—Quigley said that current abortion-related legislations "expose the cruelty of our extreme abortion laws and provide a landmark opportunity to modernize them."

The Dobbs case asks the Supreme Court to uphold Mississippi's elective abortion ban after 15 weeks of gestation; according to Quigley, the majority of European nations limit elective abortion to 15 weeks or earlier, if not banned altogether. 

"Countless lives are at stake, and the ability of states to enact laws that reflect the values of the people who live there," Quigley said. 

In the U.S., states have some autonomy in regulating resident access to abortion. The Susan B. Anthony List VP claim that the federal government and Supreme Court have wrongfully prevented state governments from imposing stricter abortion bans than Roe v. Wade allows. 

"It is widely recognized that the government has legitimate interests in regulating abortion," Quigley said. "Yet for half a century, the Supreme Court has squelched a true democratic process and tied the hands of the people, preventing them from acting on new information, such as dramatic advances in science."