COLOMBIA, SC (AP) – A new South Carolina law banning abortion will be on hold following a judge’s order on Friday to extend a temporary restraining order.
The extension of U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis runs until March 19. Its original order, issued last month, was set to expire at midnight on Friday. On Monday, Lewis is due to chair a hearing on Planned Parenthood’s request for an injunction suspending the law altogether while a lawsuit seeking to overthrow it is resolved.
Lewis initially suspended the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Abortion Protection Act ”On its second day in effect, following a Planned Parenthood lawsuit. The measure requires doctors to perform ultrasound to check the fetus for a heartbeat, which can usually be detected about six weeks after conception. If detected, abortion can only be performed if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest or if the mother is in danger.
About a dozen other states have approved similar or more restrictive abortion bans, which could come into effect if the U.S. Supreme Court – with three judges appointed by former Republican President Donald Trump – ousted Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court ruling that supported abortion rights. Federal law replaces state law.
Opponents of the state ban have argued that many women are unaware that they are pregnant at six weeks, especially if they are not trying to conceive. And, they argue, with such an early deadline, the law gives women little time to consider whether to have an abortion.
Planned Parenthood said the initial restraining order was needed in South Carolina in part because more than 75 women were due to have abortions in the state during the next three days, and most of them would have been banned under the new law.
At Monday’s hearing, state attorneys are expected to argue that the law should go into effect while the lawsuit is in progress. Earlier this week, two of those attorneys – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and Walt Wilkins, the two county prosecutor at Conservative Upstate – wrote on court papers that an earlier US Supreme Court decision upholding a partial birth abortion ban “suggests that a preliminary injunction should be denied here”.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed the bill less than an hour after state lawmakers sent him. McMaster, who asked to intervene in the suit, also sought to lift the restraining order, arguing in court documents that the suit is inappropriate in part because Planned Parenthood opened it before he signed the measure into law.
Planned Parenthood has indicated that they plan to oppose McMaster’s request to participate in the case, according to the governor’s lawyers.
The new law does not punish a pregnant woman for having an illegal abortion, but the person performing the procedure can be charged with a crime, sentenced to up to two years and a $ 10,000 fine if found guilty.
South Carolina has three clinics that offer abortion in its largest metropolitan areas – Charleston, Columbia and Greenville – and none of them perform abortions after the first trimester. Two of them have abortions only twice a week, according to Planned Parenthood.
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Meg Kinnard can be contacted at http: //twitter.com.MegKinnardAP.