S.C. Supreme Court Upholds Six-Week Abortion Ban

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South Carolina “Republican” leaders have been getting lit up by national pro-life advocates for failing to advance a tougher abortion ban. This week, pressure on them to expand the law ratcheted up even further when the Palmetto State’s supreme court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the current law – which bans abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat.

The court’s decision – issued less than a week after lawmakers adjourned for the year – concluded abortion is outlawed from the moment medical professionals detect a “steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart.”

With justice John Few writing for the majority, the court determined a challenge to the new law – brought by the South Atlantic office of national abortion provider Planned Parenthood – failed to demonstrate any constitutional impediment to lawmakers’ clear intent “to ban abortions at both the embryonic and fetal stages of development.”

“Our General Assembly based its determination of the appropriate point in time at which to ban most abortions on a correlation between a pregnancy reaching a particular point and a high likelihood the pregnancy would eventually yield a live birth,” Few wrote. “In making that correlation, the General Assembly clearly was referring to the early cardiac activity of electrical impulses we have consistently referred to in this opinion.”

Chief justice John Kittredge and justices Letitia Verdin, Buck James and Garrison Hill all concurred with Few’s opinion, although Hill concurred in a separate opinion.

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The law the court upheld is very similar to a 2021 piece of legislation struck down by a previous court two years ago. To recap, that controversial 3-2 decision in January 2023 focused on the six-week requirement of the 2021 law – which was challenged by Planned Parenthood on the grounds it violated privacy protections of the S.C. Constitution (Article I, Section 10).

A narrow majority of justices concurred with that assessment.

Issues with the 2021 law were addressed in the updated law – Act No. 70 of 2023 – with justices making it clear the specificity of Planned Parenthood’s back-to-back challenges wound up undercutting its core arguments.

“While Planned Parenthood now argues its doctors are unclear as to which point in time abortion is prohibited, it has previously stated the language from both the 2021 act and the 2023 act clearly prohibits abortion at approximately six weeks,” Few wrote. “Thus, it seems unlikely that abortion providers at Planned Parenthood have been left to ‘guess as to its meaning.'”

Few added that if medical practitioners had “perceived the (2023) act as vague on the point in time when abortions are generally prohibited, our interpretation of the term ‘fetal heartbeat’ in this opinion will now provide clarity.”

While legislative authority to set abortion law has now been affirmed in principle by the U.S. supreme court – and in practice by the state supreme court – it remains to be seen how South Carolina lawmakers will exercise their newly minted authority. Conservative lawmakers in the S.C. Freedom Caucus wasted little time in saying how they believe the legislature should respond.

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RELATED | ABORTION DEBATE RIPS S.C. REPUBLICANS APART

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“With the high court’s ruling to defend the sanctity of life, Republicans in the legislature must do the same and pass a life from conception bill immediately,” a statement from the organization noted. “Freedom Caucus members offered an amendment during the last week of session to allow the legislature to return to (Columbia) to pass pro-life legislation, but House leadership killed the amendment.”

“We return May 28th to finish the budget and will be offering the same amendment to allow us to protect life,” the statement added. “There are no more excuses.”

Freedom Caucus members specifically slammed outgoing GOP “majority” leader Davey Hiott for allegedly obstructing passage of H. 3457 – a total abortion ban.

“Earlier this year, (Hiott) stated that the House Republican Caucus would not take up pro-life legislation this year because Republicans in the Majority Caucus did not see it as a priority and because they were waiting for the Supreme Court to issue a ruling,” the caucus said.

Hiott and other ranking “Republicans” – including speaker Murrell Smith and judiciary chairman Weston Newton -continue to be called out by pro-life advocates for failing to advance H. 3457.

“South Carolina House leadership, you have failed to act,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action. “You have failed to protect South Carolina women, you have failed to protect South Carolina babies. And no more. Your constituents will know what you did just like these three sister senators who are now former senators.”

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THE RULING…

(S.C. Supreme Court)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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