The South Carolina Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week about the state’s heartbeat-based abortion ban, which Planned Parenthood is arguing is ‘impermissibly vague’ after a different argument failed at the state’s highest court.
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (LifeSiteNews) -- The South Carolina Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week about the state’s heartbeat-based abortion ban, which Planned Parenthood is attempting to get struck down on the grounds that it is "impermissibly vague."
Enacted in 2023, the law effectively bans most abortions after about six weeks’ gestation, with exceptions for rape or incest up to 12 weeks, as well as for “fatal fetal anomalies” and cases when abortion is deemed allegedly “necessary” for the mother’s health. Last summer, official state data showed that the law was responsible for reducing South Carolina abortions by almost 80 percent.
Abortion – the destruction of an innocent child in his or her mother's womb – is never medically necessary or justifiable to protect the mother's health.
The state’s highest court ruled in 2023 that the law was constitutional, but lawyers are back in court over a new complaint. WIS-10 reports that the abortion chain’s attorneys are arguing that the law’s lack of a gestation-based moment when abortions are no longer permissible creates "fear" and confusion for abortionists. Planned Parenthood wants the law to be enforced at nine or 10 weeks, as opposed to six.
“If we were to stay silent and just hope that the prosecutor in Richland County is not going to go after Dr. Farris or another doctor at Planned Parenthood who’s [committing] an abortion at, let’s say, seven weeks,” argued PP attorney Catherine Humphreville. “And, then it turns out the prosecutor interprets that differently than we did. Dr. Farris might be facing jail time, the loss of her licensure. The clinic could lose its license.”
But attorney for the state Grayson Lambert argued that the law’s actual requirement, signs of cardiac activity rather than a particular length of time, was sufficiently clear. “Even if it’s in its earliest forms, we can check the statutory box of heart,” he said. He also noted that abortion defenders never raised the question of whether “this is a nine-week or a 10-week law” before, either in legislative deliberations or in Planned Parenthood’s previous lawsuit.
“What you’re looking for from the medical perspective is: Is the blood circulating in the unborn child’s body?” added Thomas Hydrick, Assistant Deputy Solicitor General. “We’re looking at when the heart is first performing the function of the heart.”
Thirteen states currently ban all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby is working feverishly to cancel out those deterrents via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and embedding abortion “rights” in state constitutions.
