COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina House voted 67-38 to advance a near-total abortion ban with exceptions for rape and incest late Tuesday, sending the bill to the Senate after an hourslong debate.
As it now reads after changes, the proposed House legislation — H. 5399 — now makes exceptions for rape and incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy but does not make an exception for fetal anomaly.
The bill does allow doctors to perform an abortion if a mother’s life and health are at risk. The bill lists several medical emergencies that would be permissible.
Democrats hold the minority in the House and in past years have been unable to kill anti-abortion legislation. But Tuesday, eyes were zeroed in on Republicans, who have the votes to pass abortion legislation but have split over the current proposal’s lack of rape and incest exceptions — a move many Republicans say they’re unwilling to support.
In at least three instances, most Democrats joined the chamber’s more conservative Republicans voting against an amendment to add rape and incest exceptions to the bill.
“We are legislators, not doctors. Do we know enough? I think not,” state Rep. Bill Taylor, an Aiken Republican, wrote in an emailed newsletter Tuesday morning before the House returned, arguing that the Legislature’s debate was premature. “Have we fixed the things that need fixing before increasing the difficulty of seeking an abortion? The answer is no.”
But a group of roughly 20 House lawmakers, made up of the chamber’s more conservative members, say the addition of any rape and incest exceptions will be enough for them to vote against the proposed bill, dooming its chances of advancing.
“We’ve got a growing consensus in the House that is not committed to voting for the bill if that happens,” state Rep. Stewart Jones, a Laurens Republican, said standing with state Sen. Richard Cash, an Anderson Republican, on Monday.
After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June, the Legislature approved a special-called session to respond to the ruling.
South Carolina’s current six-week abortion ban, passed in 2021, is currently on hold after the state Supreme Court this month granted a temporary restraining order, leaving the state’s 20-week ban in place.
State Rep. John McCravy, a Greenwood Republican who has shepherded the bill through the chamber and introduced it Tuesday, said the bill is not intended to prohibit contraception or restrict assisted reproductive treatment, like in vitro fertilization. He said previously the legislation would not subject women who seek abortions to prosecution or restrict interstate travel.
Many doctors and other abortion rights advocates like Charleston Democratic Rep. Spencer Wetmore who has called the bill restrictive and cruel, however, say the proposed legislation will hurt women and that the language is too vague, opening up the possibility that doctors may not want to perform legal abortions because they believe their jobs will be at risk.
“I don’t think it (the proposed bill) really takes into consideration a lot of the different scenarios that could play out; there’s a lot of the nuances in the issue, more than before because of Roe v. Wade,” said state Rep. Russell Ott, a Calhoun County Democrat and the assistant minority leader, who voted to pass the so-called “fetal heartbeat” bill in 2021.
The current proposal was advanced this month by the House Judiciary Committee mostly along party lines, though three Republicans, including one who lost his House seat in the primary, did not vote. It was an indication of the apprehension among some legislators in the debate.
The committee declined to make any tweaks to the bill, leaving that debate on the floor.
House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, of Pickens, who was elected the House’s Republican leader earlier this year after his predecessor, Gary Simrill, stepped down to lead the House Ways and Means Committee, said he supports the legislation as is.
But this isn’t a caucus issue, he stressed, meaning legislators are on their own to vote how they feel.
“There’s no arm twisting,” Hiott said. This is a personal (vote).”
House Speaker Murrell Smith, a Sumter Republican, noted Tuesday that the debate was going to be the chamber’s toughest yet, asking for decorum.
“This institution has been here much longer,” Smith said. “This institution requires us to treat one another, treat this body with dignity and respect.”
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