COLOMBIA, SC – A bill that is likely to ban nearly all abortions in South Carolina is expected to pass on Tuesday.
The House Judiciary Committee is meeting to discuss the “South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Abortion Protection Act”. The bill has already passed the Senate and the governor promises that he will sign it.
The proposal would require doctors to use an ultrasound to try to detect fetal heartbeats if they think 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. The fetal heartbeat can be detected six weeks after conception and before many women know they are pregnant.
Republican lawmakers no longer plan public hearings on the bill.
At committee meetings, legislators often discuss bills and sometimes make changes. But this ban on abortion has passed the House several times in the past before it failed in the Senate.
If the committee approves the bill at its meeting on Tuesday afternoon, it will go to the House, which approved a similar bill 70-31 in 2019.
About a dozen other states have passed similar bills, although they are linked to legal challenges. Republicans were finally able to approve the proposal in the South Carolina Senate after removing three Democrats’ seats in the 2020 elections.
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