bulletin news online news
By Joseph Bustos
The State (Columbia, S.C.)
(The State) — Taylor Shelton, a South Carolina woman in her mid-to-late 20s, wasn’t planning to get pregnant. She took precautions, including having an intrauterine device. online news
But it wasn’t foolproof, and she discovered she was pregnant at the four-week mark.
Shelton went to a crisis pregnancy center in Charlotte, North Carolina, which refused to give her an ultrasound because she wanted an abortion.
At the five-week mark she went to her OB/GYN, who refused to perform an abortion because of the state’s fetal heartbeat law.
With only three abortion providers in South Carolina, the soonest she could have been accommodated in the Palmetto State was just after the six-week mark.
“I immediately called an abortion provider only to be confronted by the cruel reality of our state’s abortion ban. Because South Carolina’s law is unclear about exactly when abortion is banned, providers had to assume a ban at the earliest possible time,” Shelton said. “Even though I use contraception, and tested as early as I could, and called as quickly as I could, there still wasn’t enough time for me to get an abortion, and it is not enough time for the vast majority of South Carolinians.”
South Carolina bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Abortion providers interpret that point at the six-week mark, when many don’t know they are pregnant.
The state Supreme Court ruled in August that the state’s fetal heartbeat law is constitutional, but said there is confusion over when a baby’s heartbeat begins.
bulletin news online news
South Carolina’s ban defines “fetal heartbeat” as “cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac.”
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is seeking to have the state’s fetal heartbeat law interpreted at nine weeks, rather than six weeks. An unborn child’s heart isn’t fully formed until the ninth week, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic attorney Kyla Eastling said.
“You can’t have a heartbeat before you have a heart,” Eastling told Richland County Judge Daniel Coble during a hearing Thursday.
Planned Parenthood is asking for an injunction to have the law enforced at the nine-week mark of a pregnancy. Lawyers for the governor’s office and attorney general’s office have asked the judge to dismiss the case. Coble did not rule Thursday but, either way, his ruling will mostly likely be appealed and the case may end up in front of the state Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the governor’s office and attorney general’s office argued that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle repeatedly acknowledged the ban would go into effect at the six-week mark of a pregnancy.
“Our Supreme Court has said over and over again that the cardinal rule of interpreting a statute is to ascertain and effectuate the intent of the legislature,” said Grayson Lambert, an attorney for the governor’s office. “I am not aware of any legislative record that presents a clearer evidence of what that intent is. Every instance we can find from someone in the General Assembly who debated the 2023 act during the time talked about it as a six-week act. That’s the supporters and the opponents.”
Lambert also argued the heart begins to form at the six-week mark, has an initial shape and is emitting cardiac activity.
“Everyone in the General Assembly understood that this law was protecting unborn life of approximately six weeks of pregnancy,” Lambert said.
bulletin news online news
Lambert argued Shelton still could have had an abortion in South Carolina when she learned she was pregnant.
“She didn’t get one for whatever reason because apparently she couldn’t get an appointment, as the plaintiffs allege,” Lambert said. “But that’s not a fault of state law. That’s whatever issues were going on with scheduling at that particular time she had.”
Shelton, however, put the blame on the state’s law as the soonest she could get an appointment was after the six-week mark of her pregnancy.
“This ban is causing doctors to be wary of performing because they don’t want to go to jail or whatnot,” Shelton said. “Then also it’s a matter of scheduling, and so I don’t think that’s Planned Parenthood’s fault. I think it’s our ban’s fault.”
Planned Parenthood attorney Eastling, while speaking to reporters, said the state’s fetal heartbeat law does not say six weeks.
“It is not a six-week ban in the text of the statute,” Eastling said. “They don’t say six weeks anywhere in the statute, and it’s the court’s job to read the text of the law, not to make policy decisions. It’s a legislator’s job to codify their policy decisions within the text of the law.”
Planned Parenthood said 86% of its patients seeking an abortion who are being turned away would be able to have an abortion if the law were at nine weeks.
“That is when fetal cardiac development is sufficient to actually meet the definition of fetal heartbeat within the statute, and that is the point at which the ban sets in, when there is a detectable fetal heartbeat,” Eastling said. “Based on its definition, that can only happen as early as nine weeks of pregnancy.”
For Shelton, she said she was fortunate she was able to afford to travel to North Carolina to have an abortion even though she still faced barriers.
“Abortion is health care, and the right to access it shouldn’t be contingent on geography or socio-economic status,” Shelton said. “We’re not asking for special treatment. We’re demanding our fundamental rights to bodily autonomy and self-determination.”
©2024 The State. Visit at thestate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
bullletin news online news
