Following in the footsteps of 16 other states before it, SC banned abortions after 19 weeks in a legislative bill Tuesday, according to the Washington Post.
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The bill got a 79-29 vote in favor of the final approval of the bill.
Supporters said a foetus can feel pain at 20 weeks.
The South Carolina Abortion bill will be handed over to Gov. Haley, who is expected to sign it since she has been vocal about the likelihood of giving it a nod.
In her veto message Monday, Haley said it wasn’t fair for farmers to get help that wasn’t available to all small businesses.
“I am so excited”.
Alyssa Miller from Planned Parenthood South Atlantic says women and their families in those states have been put through highly stressful situations such as having the need to terminate pregnancy due to medical reasons, but were not able to do so. Ultimately, she thinks that taking away the life of a baby after the 19th week is inhumane, so she hopes that the legislation would lead to abortion getting banned altogether. A conference committee made up of three House members and three senators agreed to drop the exceptions for rape and incest. And while the focus of the ban is on late-term abortion, women’s health activists note that abortions after 20 weeks are actually incredibly uncommon, and occur most often in wanted pregnancies where something has gone significantly wrong. This abortion ban only involves hospitals, and none of the abortion clinics in the state offer abortions over 15 weeks.
“The reality is that abortion later in pregnancy is extremely rare and often takes place in complex and hard situations where a woman and her doctor need every medical option available”, she added.
Miller said similar abortion bans are part of “an extreme political agenda” created to “chip away at access to safe and legal abortion”.
A January 2015 Marist poll similarly showed 84 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be restricted to either the first trimester or only cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.
The South Carolina Legislature passed a bill Tuesday banning abortions after 19 weeks of pregnancy, making the Palmetto State the 17th state in the nation to do so. The South Carolina Senate approved the bill in March. The U.S. Supreme Court is now hearing arguments about whether that state’s law places an undue burden on the constitutional right to an abortion.
On Tuesday, House Democrats warned that SC will face a similar legal challenge for its abortion ban – one that taxpayers will pay for.
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Rep. James Smith, a Columbia Democrat, said the bill would be challenged in the courts and would be overturned.
