The public is having a chance to testify before South Carolina lawmakers about a bill that would ban abortion once the fetal heartbeat is detected
COLOMBIA, SC – After years of legislative disputes over a bill that would ban nearly all abortions in South Carolina, the public has had what is likely to be a last chance to speak out for or against the ban.
About 50 people testified in person and online at the House subcommittee’s hearing on Wednesday, before the panel presented the proposal. The bill passed the Senate last month, after years of setbacks.
South Carolina lawmakers have held public hearings for years on the “South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Abortion Protection Act.”
It would be necessary for doctors to use an ultrasound to try to detect the fetal heartbeat if they think that pregnant women are at least eight weeks old. If they find a heartbeat and the pregnancy is not the result of rape or incest, they cannot perform an abortion unless the mother’s life is in danger. This can happen six weeks after conception and before many women know they are pregnant.
Wednesday’s meeting had a family testimony – limited to three minutes per speaker – from all of these hearings.
There were pastors saying that all life is important. There were women’s rights groups saying that the bill takes control of women’s bodies.
There were doctors. There were women who had abortions and regretted the decision and others who did and asked lawmakers not to withdraw this choice from other women.
There were women with heartbreaking stories about choosing to terminate the pregnancy when they said the fetus would not survive outside the womb and adults who told stories of mothers who did not want them but decided to carry the pregnancy to term instead of having an abortion. .
After three and a half hours of testimony, the subcommittee voted 3-2 on the party lines, with Republicans prevailing to send the bill to the entire Judiciary Committee, probably next week.
This committee must approve the project and send it to the plenary of the Chamber. The House plenary passed bill 70-31 at the last session.
Governor Henry McMaster promised to sign it immediately, as South Carolina would join about a dozen other states that have approved similar or stricter abortion bans. All of them are awaiting court decisions with conservatives hoping that one of them will lead the United States Supreme Court to overturn its 1973 decision that prevents states from excessive restrictions on abortion.
Opponents of abortion have been pushing the South Carolina bill in some way for more than a decade. He would pass the House easily, but he would fail every time after reaching a procedural obstacle in the Senate. But Republicans won three senators in November and the Senate finally passed the bill in January.
Some conservatives are unhappy with the bill that included exceptions for rape and incest and has passed the House before without this change. At least two Republican senators said they could not support him without these exceptions.
If the House removes the exceptions or makes any other changes, the Senate will have to approve the bill again. Holly Gatling, who heads South Carolina Citizens for Life, who wants to ban all abortions, has asked lawmakers at least three times to approve the bill without changes,
Lacey Layne appeared witnessed again on Wednesday, telling the story of how an ultrasound discovered that the boy she and her husband decided to call Evan have his brain growing out of the skull. She said she made the heart-breaking decision to have an abortion just before the 20-week deadline under current state law.
She told the story several times and only deviated from her written testimony at the end of her three minutes.
“I shouldn’t have to continue sharing my personal experience with strangers in the hope that you will finally care,” said Layne.
A few minutes later, Pastor Randy Goff came before lawmakers, telling a story he often told in Columbia about how his wife was pregnant with twins named Isaac and Abigail. He spoke of the joy and delight he felt when he heard his heartbeat and spoke to his wife’s belly.
Isaac died in the womb after a doctor suggested that they wait a day to check for a possible problem with the pregnancy, Goff said.
“We need to do everything we can to protect the unborn child,” said Goff.
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Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.