Current Issues | Position | Archives
Current Issues:
Abortion
Under Advocacy on our website, see Legislative Advocacy>Human Rights, Services for League 2021-2022 actions and testimonies.
- Abortion is essential health care that allows people to decide what’s best for their bodies and their futures.
- Abortion access should be available and accessible for everyone, no matter their identity, circumstances, or location.
- Abortion restrictions disproportionately impact people of color, marginalized communities, and young people. Those who already face discriminatory obstacles to health care—Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; women; people with disabilities; people in rural areas; young people; undocumented people, and those having difficulty making ends meet —would be most affected.
- No one should be criminalized or targeted for pregnancy outcomes and making their own decisions about their bodies and futures. People have been self-managing their abortions safely and effectively— both with pills and other options—for hundreds of years. The real threat of criminalization unfairly targets marginalized communities.
8.17.22 Webinar: SC Women and Families Post Roe
Health Care Access
The League of Women Voters believes that all South Carolinians should have affordable access to a basic level of quality health care that includes behavioral health care and reproductive health care, but the reality is that this remains out of reach for many. We believe that SC should participate in federal programs to provide health care insurance and services for all South Carolinians.
2022 Healthcare Access: Webinars and Resources
Maternal, Birth, and Infant Health in SC
South Carolina ranks third worst state for having a baby. Get the facts and keep the conversation going.
9.21.23 Webinar: The State of Maternal. Birth, and Infant Health in South Carolina
Position:
LWVSC supports the availability of equitable, inclusive, quality health care at an affordable cost to all South Carolina residents. Health Insurance should be expanded to cover all South Carolinians. The state should participate fully in federal programs to provide health care insurance and services. The LWVSC strongly supports access to sexual and reproductive health care and autonomy of decision-making.
1. Support for a basic level of equitable, inclusive, quality care has been affirmed by the LWVUS. LWVSC supports access to this basic level of quality health care, which should include preventive care, mental health care, adequate access in rural areas, prescription drug coverage, co-pay based on income, and access to children’s health care.
2. LWVUS favors a national health insurance plan financed through general taxes. Until the time that this goal is met, the LWVUS supports a combination of private and public sector insurance or alternatively administration of health insurance by a combination of governments at the federal, state, and local levels. LWVSC believes that South Carolina should help to ensure coverage of its citizens by expanding Medicaid or similar federal programs to the extent feasible. As a lesser priority, the state should encourage insurers to offer more affordable options and support the portability of insurance plans.
3. The LWVSC strongly supports reproductive rights, including family planning, access to abortion, and sex education. The LWVSC affirms the LWVUS position on reproductive rights and accepts the definition of reproductive and sexual rights promulgated by Amnesty International at the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development: “Sex and reproductive health rights, including access to sexual and reproductive health care and information as well as autonomous sexual and reproductive decision making, are human rights. These rights are universal, indivisible, and undeniable. These rights are grounded in other essential rights including the right to health free from discrimination, the right not to be subjected to torture or ill-treatment, the right to determine the number and spacing of one’s children, and the right to be free from sexual violence.”
4. LWVSC supports programs to address lifestyle health issues such as food deserts, nutritional education, physical education and activity, access to green spaces, gun safety, and violence prevention, obesity, and discouraging the use of tobacco products (including vaping).
Related LWVUS position: Health Care
