SC Legislature wrong to restrict abortion

Access to medical care should not be an occasion for political grandstanding. Yet particularly around election season we see politicians rushing to interfere in the private medical decision of a woman and her doctor.

Within the past few weeks, legislators have tried to push through a reckless “personhood” measure that would have dangerous consequences for those growing their families through in vitro fertilization and women using the pill. Some House members are fast tracking a bill to ban a method of ending a pregnancy that has been the standard of care for decades.

And now the Legislature has passed H.3114, to restrict almost all women from accessing abortion care at the point of 20 weeks. This bill is callous and further victimizes women who have already experienced the trauma of rape or incest.

Legislators have asked why rape and incest survivors would not have accessed an abortion before 20 weeks. Many things can stand in the way of a woman getting services as early as she needs to, from cost to bans on insurance coverage to not being able to find a doctor nearby.

One doctor told us about a 12-year-old girl from rural South Carolina who is a victim of incest and found out that she was pregnant during her second trimester. Because she and her parents had to navigate through the health-care system, she was not seen until she was past 20 weeks pregnant.

In a state where we do not mandate medically accurate sex education, we cannot be too surprised if young girls do not immediately recognize their pregnancies.

We should show compassion for a woman who has already been through intense trauma, and not stand in her way when she is forced to make a difficult decision.

Rape and incest survivors face complex decisions. These decisions are best made by a woman and her doctor — not her legislator.