COLOMBIA, SC (AP) – The South Carolina Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would make nearly all abortions in the state illegal, overcoming years of obstacles thanks to winning new Republican seats in last year’s elections.
The 30-13 vote is probably the final hurdle for the project. It passed the House easily in previous years and Governor Henry McMaster has said repeatedly that he will sign it as soon as he can.
The South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Abortion Protection Act requires doctors to use an ultrasound to try to detect fetal heartbeat 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.
Similar projects have been approved in about a dozen other states, but are stuck in the courts. Both abortion advocates and opponents are waiting to see whether the United States Supreme Court weighs in and determines that any of the strictest prohibitions is constitutional, especially since former President Donald Trump was able to appoint three judges.
In the Bible Belt, South Carolina led the fight for stricter abortion rules during the 1980s and 1990s. Current state law prohibits abortion after 20 weeks and was once a conservative model.
But in recent years, states from Alabama to Ohio have passed restrictions that prohibit almost all abortions, because most women do not know they are pregnant before about six weeks, when the fetal heartbeat can be detected.
The path to the bill was opened in South Carolina in part thanks to Trump. The disputed presidential race energized Republicans, who won three Democrats’ seats in the 2020 elections, and their new 30-16 lead finally pushed the effort over a procedural hurdle that disrupted the project for years.
“Thank God for the people of this state,” said Republican Senator Larry Grooms of Bonneau, who has been fighting to end abortion for 24 years.
The Senate classified the bill as number 1 and made it the first major issue it addressed at the 2021 session.
Democrats said this was shameful because South Carolina has many more pressing problems, including more than 6,000 killed because of COVID-19. He never expanded Medicaid, raised the minimum wage and perpetually has an education system that is at the base of the nation, said Democratic Sen. Margie Bright Matthews of Walterboro.
“What we did for a living,” she said.
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