Staff reports
As a state Senate subcommittee began debate Wednesday in Columbia over a bill to criminalize abortion, hundreds protested at the S.C. Statehouse.
The nine-hour hearing ended without a vote, but the subcommittee’s leader said he hoped to have another hearing to refine the bill. Outside of the hearing room, the air was filled with tense emotion, according to media reports. A giant I.U.D. blow-up was tethered on the Statehouse grounds.
The bill, S. 323 by Anderson GOP Sen. Richard Cash, would outlaw abortion and eliminate exceptions for rape, incest and fatal fetal anomalies that are allowed under the state’s current six-week abortion ban. And it would send women who defied the proposed law to prison – a provision that led at least two anti-abortion groups to oppose the current measure.
Also at issue are the issues of in vitro fertilization and emergency contraception. Cash insisted his bill would have no impact on either. But doctors and attorneys pointed to specific language that could outlaw both, depending on how courts ultimately interpret the statute’s definitions.
S.C. Citizens for Life, one of the state’s oldest anti-abortion groups, criticized the current bill in a statement that opposed “any legislation that criminalizes post-aborted women. Abortion providers are the ones who should be held legally accountable, not women, pregnancy care centers, counselors and pastors.” Other anti-abortion groups supported the bill, which would create the nation’s strictest abortion law.
Meanwhile, pro-choice advocates rejected the proposed measure. Former state GOP Sen. Katrina Shealy of Lexington County, who was ousted from office in the November election for supporting women’s reproductive rights, said the removal of exceptions in the proposal sends a “chilling message” to victims. She was not allowed to speak at the hearing.
Another opponent, League of Women Voters of S.C. Vice President Lynn Teague, told Statehouse Report she worried about the narrow, sectarian impetus for the bill.
“There was an awful lot of talk of God yesterday,” she said, noting that a number of supporters invoked scripture during the hearing. “But under the Constitution, we’re not a Christian nation and we were never intended to be. We were intended to be a nation that respected all traditions.”
She added, “I respect the depth and sincerity of everyone’s beliefs, but no one has the right to impose their beliefs on everyone else in the state.”
As the hearing closed, the fate of the bill remained unclear, with Sen. Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, telling reporters he didn’t believe there were enough votes to pass it.
And while Gov. Henry McMaster, long a supporter of pro-life legislation including the current six-week ban, hasn’t signalled outright opposition, his public comments have suggested that he considers the issue settled for now.
“I know there are going to be more arguments, more debates,” he told reporters last month. “But I’m comfortable with where we’ve rested.”
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