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In a 6 to 3 decision on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, reversing the court's 50-year-old decision that guaranteed a woman's right to obtain an abortion. The court's action also set off trigger laws that banned or severely restricted abortions in some states and prompted protests across the country.

Near-total abortion ban heads to South Carolina Senate floor

South Carolina Sen. Danny Verdin, chairman of the Senate's Medical Affairs Committee, conducts a meeting on Sept. 6, 2022.
South Carolina Senate
South Carolina Sen. Danny Verdin, chairman of the Senate's Medical Affairs Committee, conducts a meeting on Sept. 6, 2022.

The South Carolina Senate on Wednesday is set to debate a bill that would outlaw nearly all abortions in the state.

The bill originated in the state’s House of Representatives. It no longer includes exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest after a state Senate panel voted Tuesday to remove those exceptions, which were added Aug. 30, just before lawmakers in the House passed the measure. The bill does include exceptions for abortions necessary to preserve the life and health of the mother.

On Tuesday, Republican Sen. Richard Cash, who opposes abortion rights, encouraged the Senate Medical Affairs Committee to take out the rape and incest exceptions.

“There is someone who deserves to be punished and we all know who that is — that’s the rapist,” Cash said. “But we are literally transferring the criminal liability and the penalty of the rapist’s crime and putting it upon the baby.”

The committee voted 7-3 to remove the exceptions. At least two senators, Democrats Marlon Kimpson and Kevin Johnson, abstained.

“We, as lawmakers, should not be in the position to decide who gets an abortion and who does not get an abortion,” Kimpson said. “That is a violation of a woman’s right to choose. As such, there’s no compromise, in my view, on this bill.”

The full bill passed out of committee in an 9-8 vote. Two Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the measure.

“This is an awful bill," said Brad Hutto, Senate minority leader. " ... Obviously what we’ve witnessed here is the Republican majority’s attempt to impose an extreme, total ban on abortion on women in South Carolina."

On Aug. 30, the South Carolina House initially rejected the bill without rape and incest exceptions by eight votes. Once Republicans saw the outcome, they quickly went through a number of complex procedures and votes to bring the bill back from the brink of failure. The exceptions were added by enough lawmakers shouting “aye" and the bill passed by a vote of 67-38.

Bill supporters say the near-total ban will not impact access to contraception or in vitro fertilization. On Tuesday, the Senate committee adopted an amendment designed to make clear the measure does not affect the sale or use of Plan B emergency contraception, also known as the “morning after pill,” and intrauterine devices used for long-term contraception, or IUDs.

An amendment proposed in committee by Republican Sen. Tom Davis that would have added exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies failed.

South Carolina’s law banning abortions after roughly six weeks was temporarily blocked by the state’s Supreme Court on Aug. 17 while the justices decided on a Planned Parenthood lawsuit that argues the ban is an unreasonable violation of privacy under the state constitution.

The South Carolina Senate is scheduled to convene Wednesday, Sept. 7.

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Claire Donnelly is WFAE's health reporter. She previously worked at NPR member station KGOU in Oklahoma and also interned at WBEZ in Chicago and WAMU in Washington, D.C. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University and attended college at the University of Virginia, where she majored in Comparative Literature and Spanish. Claire is originally from Richmond, Virginia. Reach her at cdonnelly@wfae.org or on Twitter @donnellyclairee.