The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday reversed a temporary block on the state’s abortion restrictions, with four justices agreeing and one dissenting in three separate opinions.
The law, known as the ”Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act,” limits most abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, when early cardiac activity can be detected in a fetus or embryo.
Shortly after Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act in May, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and several other medical providers filed a lawsuit in state court to try to stop it.
The state filed an emergency petition asking the South Carolina Supreme Court, which is comprised of five men, to act quickly on the case.
In a statement Wednesday, McMaster said, “With this victory, we protect the lives of countless unborn children and reaffirm South Carolina’s place as one of the most pro-life states in America.”
The law allows for exceptions to save the pregnant woman’s life and for fatal fetal anomalies, as well as limited exceptions up to 12 weeks for victims of rape and incest. Physicians who knowingly violate the law could face felony charges, jail time, fines and would have their license to practice in the state revoked by the State Board of Medical Examiners.
In one of the opinions in Wednesday’s ruling, Justice John Kittredge wrote, “To be sure, the 2023 Act infringes on a woman’s right of privacy and bodily autonomy.”
He then goes on to add that the state legislature “made a policy determination that, at a certain point in the pregnancy, a woman’s interest in autonomy and privacy does not outweigh the interest of the unborn child to live” and that using the “legal and judicial lens under which we must operate, while mindful of the difficult and emotional…
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