The Republican-led South Carolina Senate approved a bill Tuesday that would ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — before most women know they’re pregnant — and moved the governor to sign who had promised to sign it.
The Bill includes exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies, also for cases in which the health of the mother is at risk and up to 12 weeks for rape or incest.
The proposal reinstates a ban that was in place in South Carolina when the US Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade last year and, once it went into effect, the state Supreme Court struck it down because it violated the state constitution’s right to privacy.
Republicans are demanding a response to that decision as it legalized abortion up to 22 weeks into pregnancy and dramatically increased the number of abortions in South Carolina after most other Southern states enacted stricter laws.
Currently, abortion remains legal in South Carolina up to 22 weeks, although other rules largely prevent access after the first trimester at the state’s three clinics. But the law hasn’t changed because of disagreements among Republicans about how far to limit access.
South Carolina is one of the field states for legal abortion seekers, but that status is likely to end soon.
Abortion is banned or severely restricted in much of the South, including Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. In Georgia, it is allowed only in the first six weeks.
North Carolina recently approved a more liberal ban on abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, which its promoters see as a model to follow given Republicans’ poor results in the November midterm elections. In which abortion was one of the main ones. campaign issues.
