The South Carolina Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the right to privacy protected by the state's constitution includes a right to abortion. The court concluded that a 2021 law prohibiting abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which typically happens around the sixth week of pregnancy, violates that right.
"We hold that the decision to terminate a pregnancy rests upon the utmost personal and private considerations imaginable, and implicates a woman's right to privacy," Justice Kaye Hearn writes in the lead opinion. "While this right is not absolute, and must be balanced against the State's interest in protecting unborn life, this Act, which severely limits—and in many instances completely forecloses—abortion, is an unreasonable restriction upon a woman's right to privacy and is therefore unconstitutional."
