Anti-Abortion Groups Split on S.C. Abortion Bill

BY: SKYLAR LAIRD/South Carolina Daily Gazette

COLUMBIA — Even some anti-abortion advocates who are pushing for a stricter ban in South Carolina are opposed to a bill supporters proclaim would be the strongest in the nation.

A Senate panel took no vote Wednesday after hearing testimony for eight hours from nearly 80 people on both sides of the debate.

The bill, dubbed the Unborn Child Protection Act, would remove existing exceptions for victims of rape or incest, as well as fatal fetal anomalies. It would allow women to be prosecuted and sued for getting an abortion. It would become illegal to help a juvenile travel out of state for an abortion. Telling someonehow to get an abortion would be criminal, as would selling, making or possessing abortion-inducing medication.

Violators could face up to 30 years in prison. Doctors would also lose their license to practice.

Some people in the packed hearing room cursed at senators and speakers they disagreed with, both while testifying at the lectern and from the audience.

Multiple people were escorted out by Senate security. That included former GOP Sen. Penry Gustafson of Camden, who was briefly removed for not giving up the microphone when her five minutes to speak ran out.

At the meeting’s conclusion, Sen. Richard Cash of Anderson County, the bill’s sponsor and subcommittee chair, said he felt the bill needed more work. The one speaker he cited as convincing him to make a revision was a doctor who said the bill’s requirement to try to resuscitate prematurely born babies would be not only impossible but torturous.

Whether Senate Republicans, who gained a supermajority last year, have the votes to pass such a restrictive ban is unclear, though Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said he doesn’t believe enough senators support such a harsh measure.

Anti-abortion groups split

The proposal faces opposition even from groups that have been pushing for anti-abortion laws for decades.

They support a different bill that bans abortions from the onset of pregnancy, with exceptions. The law that took effect in 2023, which the state Supreme Court has upheld as a six-week ban, still allows too many abortions, they argue.

However, Cash’s bill goes too far, they contend.

The possibility of prosecuting women for having an abortion was the main reason for their opposition.

“Pro-lifers understand better than anyone else the desire to punish the purveyors of abortion who act callously and without regard to the dignity of human life,” Lisa Van Riper, president of South Carolina Citizens for Life, said in a statement. “But turning women who have abortions into criminals, as (the bill) does, is not the way.”

That group, which has worked to get anti-abortion laws passed at the Statehouse since 1990, also cited the bill’s provisions that force volunteers and workers at faith-based pregnancy crisis centers to testify against the women they help who go through with an abortion. That creates a chilling effect on the centers’ “life-saving work,” including on pastors, the group said in a release.

The Palmetto Family Alliance agreed in a similar message: “For these reasons, we are unable to support this bill as proposed,” Steve Pettit, the group’s president, said in a statement.

Others argued the bill didn’t go far enough.

Some advocates asked senators to make abortions illegal from fertilization, as opposed to when a doctor can detect a pregnancy, and classify an abortion as a homicide.

“Failing to treat the murder of preborn children as homicide in the same way that we treat homicide of born persons violates God’s law, the U.S. and state constitutions,” said Mark Corral of Catawba, who leads Equal Protection South Carolina.

Questions over implementation

Whether the bill would limit in vitro fertilization and emergency contraception, often known as the “morning after pill,” came into question as legislators asked attorneys, activists and doctors for their opinions.

Cash insisted his bill would not affect access to emergency contraception or IVF, in which multiple eggs might be fertilized but not used.

An abortion, as defined in the law, happens when a woman’s hormonal levels have changed enough for a doctor to tell her she’s pregnant. He argued that comes after a morning-after pill would be effective or when a doctor would dispose of a fertilized egg used in IVF.

But that’s not how it might be interpreted in reality, argued doctors and Democratic senators, pointing to other definitions in the law. Doctors and lawyers wanting to be cautious might decide not to offer IVF or emergency contraception, they said.

Sister senators return

Sitting beside each other, in front and center for hours of testimony, were Gustafson and former Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington. The “sister senators” were among three Republican women to lose their re-election bids last year after working to block the 2023 six-week ban.

Shealy and Gustafson continued that opposition Wednesday.

Shealy called the bill “a dangerous piece of legislation that threatens the health and safety and fundamental rights of South Carolina’s women, girls and families.”

She specifically pointed to the removal of exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

“I want to remind each of you that y’all were elected to do what is right, not what will get you re-elected,” Shealy told her former colleagues, adding that she “did the right thing” with her “no” votes.

Gustafson said she knows some senators will vote “yes” even though they don’t support it. She asked them to have the nerve to vote “no,” regardless of what it might mean for their 2028 re-election.

She pointed out that the subcommittee consisted entirely of men. The 2024 elections left the Senate without a single female Republican. There are two female Democrats in the chamber, but neither was on the eight-member panel.

“Where are the women on this committee?” Gustafson asked, as Cash asked security to remove her for speaking after her time ran out.

“You got us pushed out so you could do this,” Gustafson said into the microphone, over Cash telling her that her time was up. “It is despicable, and you should all be ashamed.”

“Turn the microphone off, please,” Cash said.

“Vote no,” Gustafson said, as security officers placed a hand on her back and followed her out of the room. She returned to her seat a few minutes later.

Testimony

Outside the Statehouse, hundreds of people against the bill held signs and prayer vigils beneath a giant blow-up replica of an intrauterine device.

Inside, opponents of the bill recounted terminating wanted pregnancies that went horribly wrong, as doctors diagnosed extreme development anomalies.

Existing law allows an abortion when a doctor diagnoses a fatal fetal anomaly. But some doctors fear making that diagnosis. Some women said they had to leave the state to get an abortion. The bill would have made care even more difficult, they said.

Even though Meg Southern Syms had an uncomplicated pregnancy, some of her friends did not, causing them to get abortions, she said. The bill, she said, would have endangered her friends’ lives by making them carry dangerous pregnancies to term, she said.

“When I think of the impact that this bill would have, I imagine my friends’ faces disappearing from Christmas cards and Thanksgiving tables,” she said.

Doctors worried about trying to parse what’s legal and what isn’t if the bill became law, including in emergencies. Some worried they might have to choose between the life of their patient and their own livelihood.

“I am faced with a legal minefield,” said Natalie Gregory, an OB-GYN in Mount Pleasant.

Supporters of the bill praised it for strengthening state law around abortions, often citing scripture and saying abortion goes against God’s will. In cases of rape and incest, the perpetrator should be punished, not the unborn child, supporters said.

“Simply put, I am convinced innocent life, innocent human life, should be protected,” said Raymond Mulholland, a member of the Greenville County Republican Party.