Near-total abortion ban takes another stride forward. Could SC pass it this year?

A near-total abortion ban penalizing doctors and women easily cleared a full Senate panel on Tuesday, but its chances at taking another step forward are unlikely.

While a majority of Republicans on the committee voted in favor of further restricting abortions in South Carolina, state Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, said he would do whatever he could to ensure the proposal did not become law.

“This law is so out of step with where South Carolinians are,” Davis said. “It does not create a culture of life. It creates a culture of surveillance, of family conflict, of legal terror.”

He argued the bill would not receive enough support in the Senate.

“It is so far out of line. I’m not really sure what we’re doing here,” Davis said. “This bill isn’t going to get debated on the calendar. This bill couldn’t muster 15 votes in that Senate, much less votes to invoke cloture.” Cloture ends debate and forces a vote on a bill and requires three-fifths support of the chamber.

The bill’s own sponsor, state Sen. Richard Cash, R-Anderson, said it would be a “great accomplishment” if his proposal received a floor vote this year.

“It’s a generational issue,” Cash told reporters after the vote. “It’s not going to be solved today or tomorrow, all across this country, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be trying to talk about it and trying to move the line for protecting human life forward.”

The ban would need support from the full Senate, the House and Gov. Henry McMaster. It would need to move quickly through the chambers, which only have a few weeks left to debate legislation before sine die, the last day of the legislature.

An abortion ban bill hasn’t been discussed by the Republican Senate caucus, Majority Leader Shane Massey repeatedly told reporters last week.

“I’ll say there has been no conversation, zero conversation, about bringing the bill up on the floor,” Massey said April 14. He repeated similar sentiments two days later.

The ban passed the full Senate Medical Affairs Committee 8-4 Tuesday morning. Several senators on the committee were absent.

The proposal would strip exceptions to a complete abortion ban for situations of rape, incest and fatal fetal anomalies. Anyone who performs an abortion could become a felon and go to jail for up to 20 years or be fined up to $100,000. A woman who has an abortion would be guilty of a misdemeanor, rather than a felony, and go to jail up to two years or be fined up to $1,000.

The bill places penalties on possessing and distributing medication like mifepristone and misoprostol for having or aiding an abortion. It would also make abortion medications a controlled substance.

Previous efforts to further restrict abortion in the past year have failed. Cash held hearings in the fall on a bill to outlaw abortion, but the proposal failed in subcommittee. Another House bill that would harshly penalize women who had an abortion didn’t even receive a preliminary vote in January.