{"id":276953,"date":"2022-09-29T10:51:59","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T15:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=276953"},"modified":"2022-10-03T16:33:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T21:33:08","slug":"south-carolina-legislators-fail-pass-law-protect-preborn-babies-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/south-carolina-legislators-fail-pass-law-protect-preborn-babies-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"South Carolina lawmakers reject watered-down pro-life bill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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House representatives in South Carolina have refused<\/a> to accept a watered-down law from the Senate that failed to protect all preborn babies in the state from abortion, leaving the current law, which restricts abortion at 20 weeks<\/a>, in place for now.<\/p>\n

During a special legislative session on Tuesday, pro-life legislators in the House of Representatives voiced disappointment with the version of the law<\/a> that was passed by the Senate earlier this month, saying it did not go far enough to protect preborn babies. The House had previously passed a bill to protect most preborn children from abortion beginning at fertilization, but the Senate rejected it. Instead, some Republican senators joined Democrats in choosing to add limits to the state’s current<\/em> pro-life law which restricts abortion to the first six weeks of pregnancy, reducing the amount of time rape survivors can get an abortion from 20 weeks to 12 weeks, and allowing abortion for rape, incest, the life of the mother (see more here<\/a> on this), and fetal diagnosis. That law is currently blocked by the state Supreme Court during ongoing litigation. The changes to the law were sent to the House for approval.<\/p>\n

\u201cI support a stronger pro-life bill. But once we realized it was not possible to pass, our primary concern became to protect the most lives of the unborn possible by strengthening the fetal heartbeat law that is in current legal jeopardy,\u201d Republican Senate President Thomas Alexander said<\/a> in a statement.<\/p>\n

Pro-life representatives, however, did not want to accept this watered-down version of the current law because they want to protect all preborn children from abortion, not return to a pre-Roe<\/em> abortion law. Believing it will be difficult to pass a stronger pro-life bill in January if they accepted the Senate’s proposed law, they decided to reject it altogether rather than concede ground.<\/p>\n