The South Carolina senate recently failed to pass a near total ban on abortions without exceptions for rape and incest.
The only exceptions left were fatal fetal anomalies and severe threat to the mother’s life.
The orginal bill that passed the House ad hoc committee had no exceptions for rape or incest before the House added an ammednment for cases of rape or incest for up to 12 weeks with a mandatory reporting requirement.
The Senate Medical Affairs committee later removed the amendment before it advanced to the full Senate.
While the Senate did not pass the ban, they did however adopt an amendment. The amendment allows exceptions for rape and incest up to 14 weeks but the abortion would have to be reported to a sheriff and include a DNA sample so that the rape or incest perpetrator could be prosecuted.
The amendment would also require two separate physicians to diagnose a severe fetal anomaly before the pregnancy could be terminated.
Republicans and Democrats were divided over the issue in both the House and the Senate.
“We were not called back to pass a bill we already have – we were called to rewrite the laws of our state after the Dobbs decision,” Rep. John McCravy said.
This is not where I wanted to be. I was hoping we’d do something pretty aggressive in response to Dobbs,” Senate majority leader Shane Massey said.
Winthrop students were also divided over the issue.
“Not only are these abortion bans insanely strict but they’re killing people and I think anyone who has a different opinion, that these abortion bans are good or neccesary, are not looking at it from a human lens,” sophomore music tech major Ravyn Rhodes said.
“These laws are killing people, they’re hurting people, they’re tearing people from their families,” Rhodes continued. “They are draconian and they need to be removed.”
“When I was 15, someone older than me tried to force me to have a baby with him. Luckily, I never got pregnant but I remember the pain I went through and the only thing that kept me afloat was knowing that I had options. It makes me scared to see that I don’t have the options I had seven years ago,” senior digital information design major Savannah Fiegl said.
“Politics and religion have no right being in reproductive health care. No one should be forced into parenthood”, sophomore political science major TJ Carbon said.
“Since this ban is based off the Dobbs decision earlier this year, I believe this is a great moral victory for the country but politically it was a very sloppy decision, especially in the polarized times we live in,” sophomore political science major David Ibragimov said.
The amended bill now goes back to the House of Representatives for approval before it can be sent to Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk.
