SC House panel ready to draft abortion ban suggestions as lawsuit seeks to stop 6-week law
As South Carolina’s House panel moves ahead with drafting anti-abortion recommendations, a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Greenville Women’s Clinic and two physician plaintiffs Wednesday aims to block the state’s six-week abortion ban.
The lawsuit sets the stage for continued tensions between the Legislature and abortion rights activists on the future of abortion access in South Carolina.
The six-week abortion ban was previously blocked in the courts over questions of its constitutionality, but following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the law was reinstated.
Criticism has also mounted over the S.C. House panel’s decision to move forward with drafting recommendations on anti-abortion legislation after having one public testimony hearing. Abortion rights activists say the panel has moved too quickly and didn’t make testimony fully accessible for attendees.
The panel will send its recommendations to the full House Judiciary Committee, a 25-member committee that will draft any legislation.
Abortion providers file court challenge
The lawsuit filed against the state seeks to implement a temporary restraining order to block the six-week abortion ban.
The plaintiffs of the bill argue the law should be blocked due to violations of South Carolinian’s constitutional rights to privacy and equal protection.
In a statement on the lawsuit, Jenny Black, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said the organization has “long vowed to do everything in (its) power” to protect abortion rights.
“With today’s state court challenge, we are once again seeking to block this harmful law that cruelly denies South Carolinians the power to make their own personal medical decisions,” Black said.
The state law requires doctors to perform ultrasounds to check for fetal cardiac activity, which is around six weeks of pregnancy. Critics argue most women don’t know they are pregnant at six weeks.
The bill does provide exceptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother and a fetus with a fatal anomaly.
The six-week abortion ban was passed in 2021, later blocked in courts on the basis of its constitutionality. On the same day of the Supreme Court’s decision on the Dobbs case, which led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Gov. Henry McMaster filed an emergency motion to reinstate the ban. The court granted his request on June 27, which allowed the ban to take effect.
McMaster told reporters Wednesday that South Carolina will “defend the state law.”
“I think it’s a good law,” McMaster said moments after the lawsuit was filed. “There is the word ‘privacy.’ The right to privacy is in our state constitution, unlike the federal constitution. The question is, what does that mean?”
SC House panel ready to draft suggestions
Following a nearly seven-hour public hearing last Thursday when testimonies largely centered around exceptions for abortion, lawmakers are likely to carve out protections for abortions in cases where the life or health of a mother is at risk, according to the chairman of the panel that will meet July 19 to draft recommendations.
The meeting is an opportunity for the 12 panel members to discuss their positions and answer questions, Chairman John McCravy, R-Greenwood, said. There will be no public testimony, and written testimony will still be accepted.
McCravy said the goal is to make recommendations for the House Judiciary Committee to draft legislation. He said he was unsure how long the recommendation process will take.
The meeting, which will start at noon in Blatt Room 110, will be open to the public and livestreamed.
After recommendations are submitted to the Judiciary Committee, McCravy anticipates the committee will draft legislation to be debated on the House floor.
“It was a very productive hearing,” McCravy said of last week’s hearing. “I want to say that we enjoyed hearing from all the different perspectives. We even enjoyed hearing the misconceptions because that will allow us to make sure that we’re clear about different things.”
Following the hearing, McCravy said the panel members followed up with an embryologist, obstetrician-gynecologists and family doctors to consider their input.
McCravy told The State his position going into the Tuesday meeting is to “put a ban on using abortion as birth control.”
The bill will likely have “careful” exceptions for the life and health of the mother, McCravy said, referencing health issues like miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and severe preeclampsia as potential exceptions.
“All of these conditions certainly are important to put in as appropriate to do so,” McCravy said. “We want to make it clear that we want to work with our professional community, our doctors, obstetrician-gynecologists, and we want to recognize that they are experts in the field.”
However, McCravy is personally opposed to exceptions for rape or incest. McCravy told POLITICO he anticipates the House vote on a bill with no exceptions for rape or incest would be tight.
A 10-year-old girl from Ohio has become the center of the debate over the rape exception, as her story of being raped and crossing state lines to get an abortion has caught national attention. A man has been charged for the rape, disproving allegations that the story was fabricated.
“If we get this bill through Judiciary (Committee) and it’s got no exceptions in it, and it gets to the floor, I think it’ll be a close vote,” McCravy told POLITICO.
He specified that he doesn’t want the panel to interfere with contraceptives or in vitro fertilization. He added that he doesn’t want the criminalization of people who receive abortions to be included in an anti-abortion bill, either.
Everyone who signed up to speak was called on at Thursday’s public hearing, including people who came last minute, McCravy said. He acknowledged that some people may have gone home for different circumstances, but he pointed to written testimony as an “adequate” way for people to give input.
Some attendees from Thursday’s hearing disagree that public voices have been adequately heard.
Vicki Ringer, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic in South Carolina, told The State not everyone had a chance to be heard after waiting for around eight hours. She referenced people having to pick up children, go to work and return home before dark as issues faced by those waiting to give testimony.
“I’m surprised (John McCravy) had any public testimony anyway, because the members of that committee honestly don’t care what we have to say. They did it for appearances,” Ringer said.
Tameika Isaac Devine, a former Columbia city councilwoman, said she arrived to wait in line around 9:15 a.m., counting around 50 people in front of her. She said it seemed that either names weren’t called in order or people signed in on another’s behalf, because by 2 p.m., Devine still had not been called to the stand.
Devine, who is an attorney, had an appointment with a client in the afternoon, so she had to leave before she gave testimony. She said she was told by staff that if she left the line, she wouldn’t be able to come back.
“I just feel like they’ve made up their minds and so they don’t want to hear from the public,” Devine said.
Another woman who waited in line for testimony, Courtney Thomas, director of communications for Carolina-based social justice support organization Cypress Fund, said the decision to not take further public testimony was “deeply disappointing.”
A heat advisory on the hearing day and the risk of COVID-19 may have deterred attendees, and no virtual option for testimony made the hearing inaccessible for several people, Thomas said.
Thomas also took issue with the pace of the House panel, questioning why anti-abortion legislation has “the luxury of speed” while other health issues like expanding Medicaid doesn’t.
“You have bills sailing through our Legislature at a speed that makes me question, are we giving this the time that it needs and are we giving this the proper study that it needs?” Thomas said. “It doesn’t seem like we are.”
The exact timeline of the eventual House bill’s passage is unknown, but the Senate is expecting to consider a House bill on abortion following Labor Day.
This story was originally published July 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
