COLUMBIA, S.C. — The right to an abortion in South Carolina is back before the state’s highest court as Republicans try to restore a ban that was overturned earlier this year — this time in front of the only state Supreme Court in the nation made up entirely of men.
Tuesday’s oral arguments will mark the second time since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal protections last summer that lawyers for the state and providers will present their arguments to the state Supreme Court. A 3-2 majority in January tossed a similar law that banned abortion once cardiac activity is detected, or at about six weeks and before most people know they are pregnant.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster recently signed into law a similar ban that starts once cardiac activity is detected. That restriction has been temporarily placed on hold as the case involving the new ban moves through the courts. Meanwhile, abortion remains legal through 22 weeks in this conservative state.
The circumstances are different this time around after a change in the court’s makeup. Justice Kaye Hearn, the author of the lead opinion in January’s decision and the court’s only woman, has since left after reaching the court’s mandatory retirement age. An all-male bench with newly sworn Justice Gary Hill will hear Tuesday’s arguments.
The case will test the strength of the January ruling. State lawyers must overcome a higher bar after the state Supreme Court recently ordered them to argue why it should overturn the prior ruling. All five justices wrote their own legal explanations for the January decision in an unusual move that the state’s lawyers argue left that ruling devoid of any firm precedent.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic’s lawyers argue that there’s no substantive difference between two laws that both limit abortions at the same point in a pregnancy. The collective opinions of the three justices in the majority all established that a roughly six-week ban violated the state…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply