COLUMBIA, South Carolina (LifeSiteNews) – The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state may enforce its heartbeat-based abortion ban, rejecting an argument by Planned Parenthood to weaken the law.
Enacted in 2023, the law effectively bans most abortions after about six weeks’ gestation, with exceptions for rape or incest up to 12 weeks, as well as for “fatal fetal anomalies” and cases when abortion is deemed allegedly “necessary” for the mother’s health. Last summer, official state data showed that the law was responsible for reducing South Carolina abortions by almost 80 percent.
The state’s highest court ruled in 2023 that the law was constitutional, but lawyers returned to court in February over the abortion chain’s revised complaint that the law’s lack of a gestation-based moment when abortions are no longer permissible created “fear” and confusion for abortionists. Planned Parenthood demanded the law be enforced at nine or 10 weeks as opposed to six.
“Tracking the language of the 2023 Act, we hold the term ‘fetal heartbeat’ refers to ‘a biologically identifiable moment in time’ (…) which a medical professional may objectively determine to have occurred by the existence of the ‘cardiac activity’ of electrical impulses detectable as a ‘sound’ with diagnostic medical technology such as a transvaginal ultrasound device,” Justice John Cannon Few wrote for the majority. “Under the 2023 Act, this cardiac activity marks the point beyond which most abortions may not be carried out when the medical professional observes it as a ‘steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart’ during any stage of the heart’s development ‘within the gestational sac.’”
“While we do not frame our holding today in the shorthand terms of a number of weeks, the biologically identifiable moment in time we hold is the ‘fetal heartbeat’ under the 2023 Act occurs in most instances at approximately six weeks of pregnancy,” he concluded.
“Time and time again, we have defended the right to life in South Carolina, and time and time again, we have prevailed,” responded South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, per the Daily Wire. “Today’s ruling is another clear and decisive victory that will ensure the lives of countless unborn children remain protected and that South Carolina continues to lead the charge in defending the sanctity of life.”
“This ruling is a resounding win for the rule of law and protecting the unborn in South Carolina,” state Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson added. “Today’s decision reaffirms that our elected legislators, not out-of-state interest groups, hold the power to shape South Carolina’s policies in accordance with the values of its people.”
Twelve states currently ban all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby is working feverishly to cancel out those deterrents via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions.
South Carolina lawmakers have also introduced legislation to classify abortion as homicide, and the state has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to exclude Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from its Medicaid program.
