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On Wednesday, South Carolina’s state Supreme Court temporarily blocked the state’s six-week ban on abortions, voting unanimously to put the law on hold while the five justices consider the case. That means that at least while the case moves forward, the state returns to its previous law, which allows abortions up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Meanwhile, the South Carolina Legislature is working on a bill that would ban abortion altogether, so there’s that. The law the state Supremes put on hold bans abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detectable. Supporters call it a “heartbeat bill” even though embryos’ hearts haven’t actually developed at that stage.
Gov. Henry McMaster and state Attorney General Alan Wilson, both Republicans (you had to ask?) vowed they’d keep defending the six-week abortion ban until the Lege passes that total abortion ban and they can start defending that. They and various other supporters of the ban issued the expected statements about how they’re confident they’ll prevail on behalf of life, and saving all the babies and the will of the people as expressed by the legislature and all that Federalist Society kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
Columbia newspaper The State summarizes the Court’s ruling thusly:
In their order blocking the law, the state’s Supreme Court justices said that although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June there is no right to privacy in the federal Constitution, it is an “arguably close question” whether South Carolina’s own Constitution affords some right to privacy that may affect state laws concerning abortion.
“At this preliminary stage, we are unable to determine with finality of the (six-week abortion) Act under our state’s constitutional prohibition against unreasonable invasions of privacy,” the justices wrote. In the ruling, the justices referred to a section in the state’s Constitution that says that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures and unreasonable invasions of privacy shall not be violated.”
South Carolina passed the six-week abortion ban as a “trigger” law in 2021, so when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24 this year, the ban went into effect three days later.
In a statement, state AG Wilson said it’s not over even if the state Supremes bombed the Germans at Pearl Harbor, pointing out that the court had only temporarily and regrettably returned bodily autonomy to women, and that it hadn’t actually found the law violated the state constitution.
Gov. McMasters also said he didn’t think the argument about the state constitution protecting privacy would hold up, because “When that provision was put into the constitution, that was in the context of eavesdropping and electronic surveillance and things of that nature.” That’s pretty persuasive: The state constitution only protects people from listening in on you, so how could it possibly mean you have control over your own body? It’s not like forcing someone to give birth is somehow more intrusive than eavesdropping.
Jenny Black, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, issued a statement saying
We applaud the court’s decision to protect the people of South Carolina from this cruel law that interferes with a person’s private medical decision.
For more than six weeks, patients have been forced to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion or suffer the life-altering consequences of forced pregnancy. Today the court has granted our patients a welcome reprieve, but the fight to restore bodily autonomy to the people of South Carolina is far from over.
And how! The Republican-controlled state Legislature is on its August recess, but when it returns, it will get right back to work on a near-total abortion ban. The House version of the bill includes only a narrow exception protecting the life of a pregnant patient, listing specific medical emergencies in which an abortion would be allowed.
A state Senate bill called the “Equal Protection at Conception – No Exceptions Act” might even manage to be worse, also allowing only emergency treatment to save a pregnant patient’s life, but as Columbia TV station WLTX explains,
In the case that a fetus dies during a procedure, the physicians would be required to document the event or face having their licenses revoked from a medical board.
The Senate bill would also prohibit “conspiring” with others to get an abortion, and even providing information on how to get an abortion, although it’s a great comfort to know that McMasters opposes any ban on free speech, hooray:
“Everyone has a constitutional right of the First Amendment to say things, to speak. We know that,” McMaster said. “Such a restriction, I think, I’m confident would not pass the House or the Senate. Sen. (Shane) Massey, Rep. (John) McCravy, have both said that particular provision is not going to see the light of day, and I don’t think it will.”
It truly is impressive to see someone take a stand for some kinds of freedom like that.
[The State / AP / WLTX / Photo: Ted Eytan, Creative Commons License 2.0]
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