A South Carolina woman who says she tried to follow the rules embedded in South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban but was forced out of state for care is now suing for clarification and an injunction.
The lawsuit, filed Feb. 5 in state circuit court, says it seeks to clarify ambiguity in the state’s so-called “fetal heartbeat” law that criminalizes abortion when an embryo’s heartbeat is detected.
South Carolina resident Taylor Shelton says in the lawsuit that she learned last year she was pregnant four weeks after her last menstrual period. She quickly decided she wanted an abortion and tried to get an appointment with an in-state provider. But the clock built into the state law ran out.
As a result, she “made three trips to North Carolina, spending roughly 20 hours driving in total,” and finally obtained an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wilmington “roughly six weeks and four days” into her pregnancy.
“The entire experience left me angry and quite frankly, traumatized,” Shelton said in a statement provided by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSA). “I want everyone to understand the impact South Carolina’s abortion restrictions and unfair treatment are having on real people, and I hope my story shows how punitive and cruel these abortion bans actually are.”
The Charleston City Paper requested but was not granted an interview with Shelton, for whom no age or hometown was listed in the lawsuit. She is joined in her lawsuit by PPSA and its chief medical officer, Dr. Katherine Ferris.
What is a “fetal heartbeat”?
The question raised in the complaint turns on the definition of “fetal heartbeat” under the statute — specifically whether the law “prohibits abortion at the detection of the earliest embryonic electrical activity, after approximately six weeks of pregnancy … or at the point when the heart forms, after approximately nine weeks of pregnancy.”
The S.C. Supreme Court recognized this ambiguity in its August 2023 decision upholding the law but chose to leave the question “for another day.”
The case is the latest in a series of legal challenges to South Carolina’s abortion ban, the first version of which was struck down by the state’s high court in January 2023. A modified statute, passed four months later, was upheld eight months later with S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster hailing the decision as “a historic moment in our state’s history and … the culmination of years of hard work and determination by so many in our state to ensure that the sanctity of life is protected.”
Among those sued in the new lawsuit were S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control Director Edward Summer and members of the S.C. Board of Medical Examiners and S.C. Board of Nursing, as well as 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson of Charleston and 5th Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson of Greenville. Dr. Stephen I. Schabel of MUSC in Charleston is BME vice president; Kelli Garber of Mount Pleasant is a registered nurse on the BoN.
“We’ve defended this law vigorously in the past,” said Robert Kittle, a spokesman for Wilson, “and will continue to do so.”
Those suing the state over the law seek a declaratory judgment to define fetal cardiac activity or relief from the “vagueness” in the current law. They also call for an injunction to halt enforcement of the law until the current case is settled.
This is a developing story. Check back for more detail.
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