COLOMBIA – A bill to ban most abortions in South Carolina took yet another step to pass on Wednesday because of violent protests by Democratic lawmakers who criticized the Republican majority for devoting legislative hours to this issue while the pandemic of coronavirus continues to rage across the state.
At an important stage in the procedure, the Senate of SC voted 29 to 17 in favor of advancing legislation, which would prohibit abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, which usually occurs around six to eight weeks of pregnancy.
The project’s steady progress came despite the vehement objections of Democrats, who argued that the state should focus exclusively on fighting the pandemic.
State Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, revealed that his father had recently been hospitalized after contracting the coronavirus. Sitting by his father’s bed, Kimpson said he saw many more Southern Carolinians arrive complaining of similar symptoms.
“COVID is running wild in our state, and here we are at the General Assembly, spending hours and hours talking about an unconstitutional law instead of talking about vaccines,” said Kimpson.
More than 6,000 South Carolinaians have died of coronavirus complications, and the state continues to see high rates of new cases.
Senate minority leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, added that he suspects that the majority of South Carolinians would not cite the ban on abortion as their priority at the moment.
“The priority seems to me to be health, education, broadband, the issue of connectivity, not opening a lawsuit in five years, approving a project that will probably never affect anyone’s life in South Carolina because it will never be law,” he said. Hutto.
Republicans responded that they are still working to face the pandemic and distribute vaccines, insisting that they can deal with both problems simultaneously.
Senate majority leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, noted that lawmakers held a supervisory hearing on the first day of the session to pressure the state health agency to speed up the delivery of vaccines “because we knew this was the number one priority 1 and we wanted to spend time on it. “
In dealing with abortion now, Massey argued that lawmakers would be able to resolve a perennial issue from their desks so they could stay focused on the pandemic.
“I know this surprises a lot of people, but we are able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” said Massey. “We weren’t going to spend weeks on it every time. We thought we could get this over with in three days and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Republican Governor Henry McMaster has promised to sign the measure if it reaches his desk, a promise he reiterated at a news conference before the Senate began over the course of two hours of debate.
But questioned about criticism that the issue was diverting attention from the pandemic, McMaster said that all officials in the Governor’s Office, as well as state officials outside his office, are working to deal with the crisis, including conference calls every morning. .
“We’ve been spending most of our time on the pandemic and it’s been a few months, as you know, since it arrived,” said McMaster. “There are a lot of other important things going on. We just have to work a little harder, work a little faster and work a little more each day – and we like to do that.”
The only Republican to vote against the bill was state senator Sandy Senn of Charleston, who said she believed it was unconstitutional. All Democrats voted against it.
The action opened a final vote on the measure that is due to take place Thursday. If approved, as expected, it will then pass to the House, which has already passed similar bills in previous legislative sessions and is likely to do so again.
Nearly a dozen conservative states have passed similar bills in recent years, each of which was quickly blocked by the courts.
But anti-abortion activists hope that, as more states take action, the increasingly conservative United States Supreme Court will feel pressure to reconsider the historic Roe v decision. 1973 Wade, who concluded that women have a constitutional right to access abortion.
After adding exceptions for rape and incest cases during Tuesday’s first day of debate, lawmakers passed an additional amendment on Wednesday that would allow exceptions if a doctor detects a fetal abnormality that would be fatal outside the womb.
Under current South Carolina law, abortion is prohibited 20 weeks after conception.
Follow Jamie Lovegrove on Twitter @jslovegrove.