MORNING HEADLINES | As a state Senate subcommittee began debate Wednesday in Columbia over a bill to criminalize abortion, hundreds protested at the S.C. Statehouse.
The nine-hour hearing ended without a vote, but the subcommittee’s leader said he hoped to have another hearing to refine the bill. Outside of the hearing room, the air was filled with tense emotion, according to media reports. A giant I.U.D. blow-up was tethered on the Statehouse grounds.
The bill, S. 323 Anderson GOP Sen. Richard Cash, would outlaw abortion and eliminate exceptions for rape, incest and fatal fetal anomalies that are allowed under the state’s current six-week abortion ban. And it would boost criminal penalties for women who defied the proposed law – provisions that led at least two anti-abortion groups to oppose the current measure.
S.C. Citizens for Life, one of the state’s longest anti-abortion groups, criticized the current bill in a statement that opposed “any legislation that criminalizes post-aborted women. Abortion providers are the ones who should be held legally accountable, not women, pregnancy care centers, counselors, and pastors.” Other anti-abortion groups supported the bill, which would create the nation’s strictest abortion law.
Meanwhile, pro-choice advocates rejected the proposed measure. Former state GOP Sen. Katrina Shealy of Lexington County, who was ousted from office in the November election for supporting women’s reproductive rights, said the removal of exceptions in the proposal sends a “chilling message” to victims. She was not allowed to speak at the hearing.
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