South Carolina Governor Enforces Abortion Prohibition Law in 6 Weeks

Henry McMaster, the Republican governor of South Carolina, on Thursday signed the law into one of the country’s most restrictive abortion policies.

The legislation prohibits almost all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which is when doctors can usually detect cardiac activity in an embryo – but before many women know they are pregnant. Doctors who perform an abortion in violation of the law can face up to two years in prison.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this step we took today was slow to happen and, as a result, it was monumental. But our battles are not over, ”said McMaster. “However, I believe that the dawn of victory is upon us.”

If allowed to go into effect, the legislation could ban almost all abortions for nearly 1 million women of reproductive age in the state, according to advocates.

South Carolina’s statute is part of a wave of extreme abortion measures passed by state legislatures controlled by Republicans in recent years with the express aim of starting a process that could topple Roe v. Wade.

South Carolina is the 10th state to enact an abortion ban, as the so-called “fetal heartbeat” can be heard, following Missouri, Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, Iowa, Ohio and Tennessee. Despite the terminology used, an embryo has no heart at an early stage of pregnancy. What is interpreted as a heartbeat in these beads is actually cardiac activity in the fetal tissue that will later become the heart as the embryo develops.

Courts have blocked any bill on fetal heartbeat so far, concluding that it is unconstitutional to prohibit an individual from having an abortion before the embryo’s viability. None of these “six-week bans,” as reproductive rights groups call them, is currently in effect and abortion remains legal in all 50 states.

The legislation already faces a legal challenge. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and Greenville Women’s Clinic filed a lawsuit to block the bill in federal court a few hours before it was sanctioned by McMaster.

The South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Abortion Protection Act requires doctors to try to detect fetal heartbeat if they think patients are at least eight weeks pregnant. If doctors discover that there is cardiac activity, which can occur in up to six weeks, they are prohibited from having an abortion unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or the mother’s life is in danger.

The exceptions themselves come with caveats. If a doctor terminates a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, he must report these criminal allegations to the county sheriff in which the abortion was performed within 24 hours and reveal the patient’s name and contact information.

“This is an unconstitutional ban on abortion,” said Katherine Farris, medical director at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a researcher at Physicians for Reproductive Health. “This means that women in South Carolina do not have local access to safe and legal abortion by the time most women find out they are pregnant.”

Doctors measure the onset of pregnancy using the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period. When a woman misses her period, she is considered to be four weeks pregnant. Under South Carolina law, a woman would have about two weeks after missing her period to determine that she is pregnant and find a clinic available to schedule an appointment.

Farris said that planned Parenthood was being flooded with calls from frightened women. “We will make sure that we are there to answer questions and help navigate the system,” she said. “But it creates a lot of anxiety for patients. That would have caused anxiety two years ago, but doing so in the middle of a pandemic? This makes an unplanned pregnancy much more difficult. ”

A similar six-week ban was passed by the South Carolina House in the 2019 session, but was not voted on by the state Senate before the end of the 2020 session.

This year, the two chambers quickly passed the bill. On January 29, McMaster boasted on Twitter that South Carolina would soon become “the most pro-life state in the country!“

In a statement, Jenny Black, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, noted that South Carolina has some of the most stark health disparities in the U.S.

“If South Carolina politicians really cared about the quality of life for women and children, they would start working to accelerate the vaccine’s launch, expand Medicaid and deal with the dangerously high rates of maternal and child mortality in the state” said Black. “The ban on abortion disproportionately harms those who already have less access to quality health care, including people with low incomes, people of color, people who are LGBTQ and those who live in rural areas. If this law goes into effect, it will pose a serious threat to the health and livelihood of South Carolina residents. ”