Brack: Get rid of cruel abortion bill or take away the Viagra

This is not something shared lightly: I will discourage my college-age daughters from returning to live in South Carolina as long as venal Republican legislators keep trying to make the state’s already barbaric anti-abortion restrictions even stricter.

These young women – and millions of South Carolina women – shouldn’t have to live in a state that wants to take away freedoms and health care decisions because of narrow-minded zealots on some mission to turn back the clock.

What six white male GOP senators have been pushing, particularly in the last few days, is ratcheting up venom, hate and cruelty. They’re trying to impose their deluded wills on South Carolina’s women. It’s nothing short of morally and physically disgusting.

So shame on these six state GOP senators who are actively backing the so-called “Unborn Child Protection Act” (S. 1095): Sens. Richard Cash, the Anderson ringleader, as well as Danny Verdin of Laurens, Tom Fernandez of Summerville, Carlisle Kennedy of Lexington, Billy Garrett of McCormick and Rex Rice of Easley.

The summary of the bill is pretty succinct. It seeks to “prohibit abortions.” But it wants to do so in such a brutal, vulgar manner that it would ban abortion from the moment a pregnancy was detected clinically as well as eliminate exceptions of rape, incest and fatal fetal anomaly, which currently is allowed under S.C.’s already restrictive law. Even worse: Anyone connected with an abortion could face felony charges – even doctors, who could face up to 20 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. A woman who received an abortion could face a misdemeanor charge and up to two years in prison.

Translated: These men – who can’t give birth and really know nothing about it – are as serious as heart attacks in an election year with yet another wicked scheme to inflame people about abortion. I wish pro-choice legislators would start introducing bills to ban Viagra, Cialis and other erectile dysfunction drugs. Maybe anti-abortion male nimrods would wake up a little bit if they saw their health choices being limited.

So it came as no surprise Wednesday when the S.C. Senate Medical Affairs Committee, chaired by Verdin, rammed through this cruel bill on an 8-4 voice vote. Garrett, Fernandez and Cash are members of the committee. Three Democrats and Republican Tom Davis of Beaufort voted against the measure.

For South Carolina’s women, Davis is the new hero in this long, continuing abortion debate which led to the ouster of three vocal Republican women senators in the 2024 election. On Wednesday, Davis vowed the anti-choice cabal’s draconian abortion bill would not make it through the state Senate this year – even if he had to filibuster it after senators dealt with the state budget. (The General Assembly will adjourn May 14.)

“I don’t want to be associated with this,” Davis said this week. “I don’t want the party that I am affiliated with to be associated with this. I’m embarrassed.”

Later he added the restrictive bill does not reflect the views of most South Carolinians: “Somebody has got to yell stop. We jumped the shark on this. This is ridiculous. This bill is so out of line of where South Carolinians are on this issue, I doubt that 5% of South Carolinians think that this is a good idea.”

Vicki Ringer of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic said in a statement that anti-abortion lawmakers were endangering lives with bills like S. 1095.

“South Carolina has risen in infamy as a state where it’s too hard to get reproductive and pregnancy care and where it’s dangerous to give birth, particularly for Black women,” she said. “But instead of working toward solutions that bring more providers into this state and make health care more accessible, all our lawmakers offer are prayers, platitudes and harsher threats.

“If lawmakers won’t hold themselves accountable for their actions, we must do it for them. We won’t stop fighting — and we won’t be silenced.”

Good. Job #1: Stop the bill dead in its tracks. Job #2: Get rid of their ED medication.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.