After the 6-week ban, abortion landscape changes in S.C.

In the wake of the recent S.C. Supreme Court decision to uphold the General Assembly’s six-week abortion ban, reproductive care advocates and elected officials are responding to a changing legal landscape.

Some are steering South Carolina women to places where they can get the reproductive health care they now can’t in South Carolina. Others want to move the fight away from the General Assembly to the people.

The director of engagement at the Carolina Abortion Fund (CAF), who asked that her full name not be used, said that even after the six-week ban in South Carolina went into effect, the organization’s mission “remains the same — to serve North and South Carolina callers” who are looking to seek an abortion but may not have the funds or outlet to do so, including those on “the margins of the margins” of access.

Location, especially in rural areas, also plays an important role in access to care. Fourteen of 46 counties in South Carolina don’t have an obstetrician gynecologist (OB-GYN), said Vicki Ringer, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSA).

CAF has seen an extremely high volume of callers recently, according to Justine, the engagement director, because the need for services always persists — even after restrictive legislation.

“People have been having abortions for as long as there have been people.”

If you are seeking an abortion

“The first thing [someone seeking an abortion] needs to do is call us [Planned Parenthood] and get in very quick” to make an appointment, Ringer said, regardless of whether they can initially afford it. The earlier the interaction is, the more alternatives someone might have.

The scheduling can be “overwhelming,” Justine added, which is why CAF offers to counsel patients through it — alongside financial assistance with the procedure and everything it necessitates, including child care and travel outside of the state.

“There will be very few pregnant women who want an abortion who can get one in South Carolina,” Ringer said, “so that will mean that we will have to help navigate other states for them.”

She said North Carolina is an option for those under 12 weeks of pregnancy, and Planned Parenthood providers might refer patients who are further along to states with looser restrictions, like Virginia, Illinois, Maryland, Washington D.C., and New York.

Many patients, Ringer said, are seeking an abortion because of “a fetal anomaly that has just been diagnosed with their 20-week scan,” but it all depends on their ability to travel out-of-state — and what they can afford.

Planned Parenthood and the Palmetto State Abortion Fund are two groups in South Carolina that can help with these costs. Typically, Planned Parenthood will give a patient a gas card, an Uber voucher or a bus ticket to a clinic in another city or state, Ringer said. She noted that Planned Parenthood does not cover the cost of plane tickets.

Because PPSA, like CAF, is a multi-state network, Ringer added, “all of our nursing staff are licensed under the multi-state compact.”

That means, a 72-hour waiting period between abortion and consultation required by North Carolina law can be fulfilled by certified nurses in South Carolina, which cuts travel time and costs, Ringer said.

Another type of abortion available is the “self-managed abortion,” which is an at-home medication abortion done without a medical professional, sometimes referred to as “Plan C.” It is illegal under South Carolina law, despite the fact that, according to Ringer, “it has been used safely for 23 years” and “has less side effects than Tylenol.”

A Charleston City Paper article in 2022 referenced in detail the benefits and risks of a platform called PlanCpills.org, which “provides information on obtaining abortion medication in the U.S. and through online, international pharmacies.”

What to avoid

Ringer and Justine emphasized the importance of protecting one’s personal medical data and menstrual records. People who menstruate “just can’t be too careful,” Ringer said.

Justine warned against the facade of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), which are “organizations that seek to intercept women with unintended pregnancies who might be considering abortion,” according to a study published by the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics. But they can look like genuine abortion providers. “They have one goal,” Justine said. “And the goal is to dissuade you from seeking that [abortion] care,” she said.

According to a Crisis Pregnancy Center map, there are 35 statewide, in comparison to only three clinics with abortion services in South Carolina.

These religious-affiliated centers receive tax dollars, Justine said, and are often run by unlicensed medical providers — who will conduct inaccurate ultrasounds and lie about patients’ stages of pregnancy. What’s more, she said, CPCs are not subject to federal HIPAA privacy rules, which means that they aren’t required to keep any medical records confidential.

‘Uphill battle’ is ahead

S.C. Sens. Margie Bright Matthews, D-Charleston, and Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, are two of five women who filibustered the abortion ban in the legislature earlier this year. Now that the court upheld the ban, they expressed frustration with a group of elected officials that they said seems to, time and time again, focus on banning abortion instead of promoting laws that might actually help their constituents.

Matthews emphasized her colleagues in the Senate would rather pass “one iteration or another” of anti-abortion laws than even try to address hate crimes.

“These legislators … want to have more babies, but none of them are willing to step up to the plate and be foster parents,” Shealy said.

Nor will they provide assistance for impoverished families, Shealy continued. “My ‘meals in school’ bill … has been held up for a year, because [the legislators] think everybody can pay.”

These policymakers refuse to fight for children and families with real needs like food and education, Justine said, in favor of the rights of “unborn people, [which is] such an easy thing to advocate for.” But this support stops “the minute that they’re born,” Justine continued, because then they are people who require social services.

So, instead of having elected officials call the shots, “the most fair way to do this [abortion decision] would be to put it to the people,” Shealy said. This is why both Shealy and Matthews are planning to propose legislation that would give the abortion decision to the public.

However, Shealy noted that this legislation — and the fight for abortion rights in general— will be an “uphill battle.”

“It was easier to get a referendum on the lottery issue than it is on the abortion issue. This is where we are,” Matthews admitted.

In the end, though, the reason the anti-abortion legislators “have absolutely no interest in putting [abortion access] on the ballot,” Ringer said, is because their views are facing an uphill battle too.

Ringer added, “The people will vote to save abortion access. It has happened in every state where it’s been on the ballot.”