On Jan. 5, 2023, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled 3-2 that the state’s six-week abortion ban, known as the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act, was unconstitutional. Signed in February 2021, the law banned abortion once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks. The bill was blocked from taking effect in March 2021 but became effective after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not grant the right to an abortion, overturning Roe v. Wade, in June 2022.
The court found that the law violated Section 10 of Article I of the state constitution, which provides a right against unreasonable invasions of privacy. Justice Kaye Hearn wrote that “few decisions in life are more private than the decision whether to terminate a pregnancy. Our privacy right must be implicated by restrictions on that decision.” Hearn wrote that the ban on abortion at six weeks was an unreasonable restriction and that six weeks was not a reasonable time period for a woman to find out she is pregnant and decide to get an abortion.
Justice George C. James dissented, writing, “The scope of the privacy right included in Article I, Section 10 is of doubtful import. Therefore, we must consider the intent of the framers and the voters. It is clear the framers did not intend to create a full panoply of privacy rights, much less the right to bodily autonomy or the right to have an abortion.”
