COLUMBIA, S.C. _ South Carolina's fetal heartbeat abortion ban advanced to the Senate floor Tuesday, just after a divided Senate Medical Affairs Committee decided to reinsert exceptions to the bill for pregnancies that result from rape or incest.
The plan to outlaw abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women realize they are pregnant, is unlikely to pass a fractured state Senate in which even the proposal's Republican supporters are divided over those exceptions.
Still, Senate Republicans pushed the proposal forward Tuesday with a 9-6 vote that split along party lines.
The proposal is a transparent effort to defy Roe v. Wade and give the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling that affirmed a woman's right to have an abortion. The bill, H. 3020, is similar to fetal heartbeat bans that have already passed in half a dozen conservative states, but all of those bans have been blocked or overturned by federal judges.
The full Senate can take up the bill when the Legislature returns to Columbia on Jan. 14 for the second half of a two-year session. The House already passed the proposal, with rape and incest exceptions, and Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has promised to sign the proposal into law if the Senate follows suit.
But two weeks ago, a GOP-dominated Senate panel removed those exceptions, arguing all unborn children deserve the right to life, regardless of how they were conceived.
The debate over those exceptions continued for an hour and 45 minutes Tuesday in the full Senate Medical Affairs Committee _ 14 men and one woman.
