The South Carolina State Supreme Court has unanimously upheld a law banning abortions after a heartbeat can be heard.
Abortion mill operator Planned Parenthood challenged the law, which says an abortion cannot be performed once doctors can detect “cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac.”
According to the Associated Press:
The state argued that is the moment when an ultrasound detects cardiac activity. Planned Parenthood said the words after the “or” mean the ban should only start after the major parts of the heart come together and “repetitive rhythmic contraction” begins, which is often around nine weeks.
The justices acknowledged the medical imprecision of South Carolina’s heartbeat provision, which is similar to language in the laws in several other states. But they said this drove them to study the intent of the General Assembly, which left no doubt that lawmakers on both sides of the issue saw it as a six-week ban.
“We could find not one instance during the entire 2023 legislative session in which anyone connected in any way to the General Assembly framed the Act as banning abortion after approximately nine weeks,” Associate Justice John Few wrote in the court’s opinion.
The justices said opponents of the law used six weeks when proposing amendments on when child support payments should start that were voted down.
The state Supreme Court ruling states:
“This Court holds that it is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that the General Assembly intended, and the public understood, that the time frame of the Act would begin around the six-week mark. The moral and ethical issues that this case presents are immense and this Court does not take that lightly. However, as Justice Kittredge noted in Planned Parenthood II, the courts must respect the separation of powers principles and the limited (non-policy) role it is enshrined with, and this Court must approach this case with one single commitment: to honor the rule of law. The South Carolina Supreme Court and the General Assembly have spoken. This Court must listen.”
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