South Carolina House passes abortion ban with some exemptions

On Wednesday, South Carolina’s House of Representatives passed legislation that would prohibit the vast majority of abortions during every stage of pregnancy.

As per the bill itself, there are only certain circumstances where an abortion can be carried out, and any physician who performs an abortion must provide written confirmation that it was necessary.

The bill will ban abortion, except in the following cases: “the death of the pregnant woman; a substantial risk of death for the pregnant woman because of a physical condition, or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”

The bill states that any physician who performs an abortion in violation of the above exceptions must declare in a written document that the medical procedure was necessary.

The House passed the legislation by a vote of 67-35 on Wednesday morning after approximately two hours of back and forth between the two sides, with the majority of speeches coming from Democrat Representatives who were speaking out against the bill. The bill will have one more vote before it is passed to the senate.

Some representatives did have reservations about passing a bill with rape and incest exceptions, however they did have a change of heart when it came to the vote.

“But here’s the thing — at the end of the day we passed a good pro-life bill in South Carolina,” said Republican Rep. John McCravy, who helped pass the bill through the chamber.

The Republicans have twice as many members as the Democrats in the South Carolina House. Inside sources said that the Republicans used their one-hour break before the vote to convince their most conservative members to agree on the rape and incest exceptions.

Democrats said they were no longer interested in debating abortion after the General Assembly agreed to a six-week ban in 2021, however Republicans opted to call for a special session after Roe v. Wade was overturned in the Supreme Court.

“It is not our bill. We’re not the ones trying to control their bodies,” Democratic Rep. Leon Stavrinakis said.