South Carolina Senate moves to further restrict access to abortions

By Julia Harte

(Reuters) -The South Carolina Senate on Thursday authorized a invoice tightening an abortion ban that’s blocked by the state’s highest court docket, following two days of fierce debate between anti-abortion Republicans and extra reasonable lawmakers from each events.

The invoice the Senate authorized would minimize exceptions for rape and incest to the primary trimester of being pregnant, not 20 weeks as the present regulation gives. Like the present ban, the invoice would additionally allow abortions if the fetus receives a deadly prognosis, however it will require diagnoses from two docs, not one, because the blocked regulation requires.

The present ban on abortions after six weeks with exceptions for instances wherein the lifetime of the mom was in danger would stay.

The South Carolina Home earlier authorized a near-total ban on abortions however Republican backers of the invoice relaxed it after it grew to become clear they lacked the Senate votes for a broad ban.

“We girls are about to endure a setback by the hands of quite a lot of white males,” mentioned State Senator Sandy Senn, certainly one of a number of Republican lawmakers who fought the near-total abortion ban that the Senate started contemplating on Wednesday morning.

“However we’ll reside to combat one other day,” she added.

The state’s Supreme Courtroom blocked the present state abortion ban in August following a problem by abortion suppliers, saying it might battle with the state’s structure.

Senn expressed skepticism that the state Supreme Courtroom would permit South Carolina’s present abortion ban to face.

However Republican State Senate Majority Chief Shane Massey, who launched the extra restrictions that have been authorized on Thursday, mentioned he was assured the court docket would deem it constitutional.

South Carolina is certainly one of about 25 U.S. states which can be anticipated to attempt to limit abortions or have already executed so following the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s June 24 choice to overturn its landmark 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade, which assured a nationwide proper to abortion.

Abortion rights have emerged as a flashpoint in November U.S. midterm elections. Practically 60% of voters within the conservative state of Kansas rejected a poll initiative in August to take away abortion protections from the state’s structure, elevating Democrats’ hopes that anti-abortion efforts might draw voters to their get together.

A number of of South Carolina’s Republican state senators, together with all three Republican girls within the chamber, urged their fellow GOP lawmakers to contemplate public opinion about abortion whereas debating the invoice.

Democratic State Senator Dick Harpootlian additionally advised that voters would retaliate in opposition to Republicans for passing the abortion invoice.

“I’ll defer to you, girls of South Carolina, and say there’s an election developing in November,” Harpootlian mentioned in Thursday’s debate.

(Reporting by Julia Harte; Enhancing by Christian Schmollinger and Stephen Coates)