An important bill to protect babies from abortions will get a key vote next week in the South Carolina state House.
As LifeNews.com reported, Sen. Sandy Senn (R-Charleston) and a few other Republicans blocked a bill in the state Senate that would have banned abortions by protecting babies from conception. Fortunately, their actions will not end the effort to protect babies from abortions in South Carolina.
Because the state Senate had already approved a heartbeat bill to protect babies from abortions starting at 6 weeks, when their heartbeats can be detected, the state House will take up that legislation next week and will likely approve the measure – which would send it to Governor Henry McMaster, who would sign it into law.
With one week left in the 2023 session of the General Assembly, the South Carolina House will take up the Heartbeat Bill in hopes of stemming the flood of abortions now occurring in the Palmetto State.
Representative John McCravy, R-Greenwood, confirmed today that the House will take up the Heartbeat Bill (S474) next week after the State Senate was unable to pass the Human Life Protection Act (H3774) this session. The Human Life Protection Act would have protected unborn children from death by abortion once the mother’s pregnancy is clinically diagnosed.
ACTION ALERT: Contact members of the South Carolina House and urge them to vote for the Heartbeat bill.
In February, however, the Senate passed a Heartbeat Act (S474) that protects the unborn child once the fetal heartbeat is detected. The heartbeat bill currently is in the House Judiciary Committee. Both bills have exceptions for life of the mother, serious bodily impairment of the mother, medical emergency, rape and incest, and fatal fetal anomaly.
In a statement released Friday to South Carolina Citizens for Life, Representative McCravy, chairman of the House Family Caucus, said, “It looks like we will be taking up the heartbeat bill next week in the House. North Carolina is passing a pro-life bill. Florida just passed a pro-life bill. We cannot let our state become an abortion destination state.”
Though protecting babies from conception is preferred, pro-life advocates are elated to be able to protect most babies from certain death.
In a statement released Friday to South Carolina Citizens for Life, Representative McCravy, chairman of the House Family Caucus, said, “It looks like we will be taking up the heartbeat bill next week in the House. North Carolina is passing a pro-life bill. Florida just passed a pro-life bill. We cannot let our state become an abortion destination state.”
Abortion data from the State Department of Health and Environmental Control show that more than 1000 babies a month are dying in the state’s three lucrative abortion businesses. Planned Parenthood operates abortion businesses in Columbia and Charleston. The abortion business in Greenville is privately owned.
Because the SC Senate failed twice to pass the Human Life Protection Act that protects the unborn child when the mother’s pregnancy is clinically diagnosable, Representative McCravy said the “best pro-life bill we can pass at this time” will protect the unborn child once the fetal heartbeat can be detected. Currently abortion in South Carolina is legal up to 20 weeks after fertilization.
Senate Republican Leader Shane Massey was disappointed after Senn and the other pro-abortion Republicans sabotaged the bill and said it appears impossible that the Senate will pass the Human Life Protection Act (H3774) , which would protect babies starting at conception.
Citing abortion statistics from the Department of Health and Environmental Control, Senator Massey said abortions have doubled in South Carolina since the State Supreme Court overturned the 2021 Fetal Heartbeat Act while Georgia and Florida enacted laws protecting the unborn when the heartbeat can be detected. He said South Carolina is an abortion destination state for the southeast.
“South Carolina [abortion] law is the weakest in the southeast,” Massey said, emphasizing that abortions for out-of-state women have nearly doubled. North Carolina allows late abortions up to 20 weeks but there is a three-day waiting period, he said. That is a factor driving North Carolina residents to South Carolina where there is a 24-hour waiting period.
In 2022 from January to March, 87 non-resident women received abortions in South Carolina. In 2023 from January to March, 1,385 non-resident women received abortions in South Carolina. “That is a 1500 percent increase” in the number of non-resident women coming to South Carolina for abortion, Massey said.
Abortion is legal in South Carolina up to 20 weeks after fertilization. “Most South Carolinians don’t think that is acceptable,” Massey said.
During committee debate on the bill, one particularly effective message came from pro-life physician Peter Bleyer, M.D. who wrote to the lawmakers,
“As president of South Carolina’s Catholic Medical Guild and medical director of two SC crisis pregnancy centers, I have come to fully understand that it is our refusal to respect life in all its stages which has led to the general disrespect for our profession. If you lie about little things, you will lie about greater ones as well. In denying the humanity of the small, newly conceived human for financial gain, we denied our ethical duty to establish a doctor-patient relationship with the child in the womb and sold out to our patients… Large physician groups have worked tirelessly since the 70s to convince America that not all life has equal value, dehumanizing that which physicians know better than anyone to be completely human. It is disappointing that government must legislate that which physicians have a natural ethical obligation to provide, but I thank you for doing so. Clearly it is necessary. Please pass H3774, the Human Life Protection Act and protect the most vulnerable members of our human family in South Carolina.”
ACTION ALERT: Contact members of the South Carolina House and urge them to vote for the Heartbeat bill.
