The three Republican women in South Carolina’s Senate urged the other members of their party to adopt a 12-week abortion ban as they fought additional restrictions one month after helping filibuster a near-total ban. But it remains to be seen whether the coalition known as the “sister senators” will be able to block a new version of a bill that cleared the state Senate earlier this year. The three Republicans, one Democrat and one independent are the only women in the 46-member chamber. The Republican-led state Senate on Tuesday was debating a bill banning most abortions after an ultrasound detects cardiac activity, generally around six weeks.
The South Carolina Senate approved a bill Tuesday that would ban most abortions after around six weeks of pregnancy — before most people know they are pregnant – and sent it to the governor who has promised to sign it.
The proposal restores a ban South Carolina had in place when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year — a ban that, once it took effect, was overturned by the state’s highest court because it violated the state Constitution’s right to privacy.
Republicans have been searching for an answer to that ruling because it left abortion legal through 22 weeks of pregnancy and sharply increased the number of abortions taking place in South Carolina as most other Southern states enacted stricter laws.
South Carolina is among the last bastions in the region for those seeking legal abortions, but that status likely will end soon.
Most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy will be banned in North Carolina beginning July 1 after the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature successfully overrode the Democratic governor’s veto last week. Abortion is banned or severely restricted in much of the South, including bans throughout pregnancy in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. In Georgia, it’s allowed only in the first six weeks.
The South Carolina bill includes exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies, the patient’s life and health, and rape or incest up to 12 weeks.
