COLUMBIA, S.C. — As abortion-rights and anti-abortion activists await a U.S. Supreme Court decision over whether the controversial Texas abortion ban can stand as is, South Carolina groups and lawmakers are eyeing whether the Palmetto State will copy that legislation in the year ahead.
Some abortion-rights advocates say they’re concerned South Carolina will be next. Those concerns could be well-founded.
One South Carolina senator, the main sponsor of the state’s six-week “fetal heartbeat” abortion ban law passed last year, said he’s closely watching the proceedings in Texas to see what parts of their law could be successful in South Carolina.
“I’m reviewing what Texas has done,” state Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley, told The State. “It’s a very novel approach.”
South Carolina’s abortion ban has been put on hold by the courts. The high court also is weighing Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, a ruling the court is likely to release around next summer.
The Texas abortion law goes even further, relinquishing the state from enforcing the law.
Instead, the law deputizes private citizens by allowing them to sue anyone who performs an abortion. Anyone, regardless of whether they have a connection to the patient or the health care provider, could sue and get $10,000 and their legal fees covered if they win.
Critics say the measure turns people into vigilantes.
Abortion-rights advocates have struggled to file a lawsuit to stop the bill entirely since it took effect Sept. 1 because Texas officials are not enforcers of the new law.
That measure is the focus of the high court’s deliberations, which has raised alarms for even gun rights advocates who worry what it would mean for them should the Supreme Court uphold that provision, the Texas Tribune reported.
It’s also caused alarm for abortion-rights advocates and providers in South Carolina, who argue should access to safe and legal abortions be further restricted, people may resort to less safe methods. Abortion is never going away, they add.
“We could be looking at a risk of health and life if people are desperate enough,” said Vicki Ringer, the director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.
Supreme Court weighs abortion restriction cases
Last year, South Carolina lawmakers passed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, banning abortions after a heartbeat is detected at around the six-week mark.
Numbered S. 1, it was the first major piece of legislation passed when lawmakers returned to Columbia after being interrupted in 2020 by COVID-19.
A federal court blocked the law a day after, ruling it violated the viability standard, which says that abortions cannot be restricted until the time that a fetus can survive outside of the pregnant person’s body.
Unlike South Carolina, the Texas “fetal heartbeat” abortion ban took effect after the federal courts and the Supreme Court declined to temporarily stop it.
Grooms said the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Texas law will affect what sort of anti-abortion legislation he introduces when lawmakers return to Columbia in January, particularly as it relates to the enforcement mechanism.
“Doing something exactly like Texas, at this moment, would probably cause us to have a lot of legal fees,” Grooms said.
Until then, groups also are waiting on the court’s decision, which could come down next summer.
“What the Supreme Court says over the coming weeks and months is going to be critically important for what will happen here in South Carolina,” said Ann Warner, the CEO of the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network, a South Carolina-based group that advocates for the rights and advancement of women.
There’s no doubt that people in South Carolina are worried, Ringer said.
“And not just those of us who do this work day in and day out,” Ringer said. “People in general are concerned about the movement away from protecting reproductive rights, specifically abortion, and that our state seems to be intent on attacking that in a time where there seems to be so many other prevalent needs.”
South Carolina Republicans expanded their majority in the Legislature after the 2020 election, flipping five State House seats. And with more members, Republican lawmakers have vowed to continue filing restrictive abortion legislation.
State Rep. John McCravy, a Greenwood Republican who chairs of the conservative Family Caucus, said he’s heard interest in passing a Texas-style law in South Carolina.
McCravy, a lawyer, said South Carolina, however, might not be the best venue for it. The 4th Judicial Circuit, which includes South Carolina, has a history of upholding the standards set under Roe v. Wade, which protects a woman’s right to choose whether have to an abortion.
Abortion-rights advocates aren’t so sure lawmakers will be swayed.
“There’s no question,” Warner said, “that the Legislature here will do the same thing.”
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