On Friday, a district court judge issued an injunction blocking the implementation of South Carolina’s fetal heartbeat abortion law.
The law, which was signed by Governor McMaster last month, would prohibit abortion if a doctor were able to detect fetal heartbeat, which can be detected in the first six weeks of pregnancy, often before the woman knows she is. pregnant.
The act will only take effect if Roe v. Wade it is annulled, either by a Supreme Court decision or by a constitutional amendment. Just a day after the governor signed the bill, Judge Mary Geiger Lewis issued a motion for a temporary restraining order before a March 9 hearing.
In determining whether to issue the injunction, Judge Lewis wrote that because Planned Parenthood vs. Casey argued that a woman has the right to terminate a pre-viable pregnancy and because South Carolina law would prohibit abortion long before fetal viability, plaintiffs in this case are likely to succeed in their argument that the act is unconstitutional. She wrote that “This case does not come close” and that she was “unable to understand how another court could decide this issue differently than the way this Court has ruled”.
She further wrote that it was “nothing short of disconcerting” for the government to argue that the act is constitutional “although certainly, all the while knowing very well that it is not.” She rejected the theory that the three most recently appointed Supreme Court judges “are secretly conspiring to overthrow both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey because they are personally opposed to abortion “, noting that” such a suggestion is misinformed at best, and highly offensive at worst “.
She also censored the press for routinely feeding the narrative that the courts are political, pointing out the name of the president who appointed a judge or judge. In rejecting this notion, she wrote: “We are neither Democrats nor Republican courts. We are Article III constitutional courts. Time course.”