South Carolina’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s ‘fetal heartbeat’ law in a Wednesday ruling.
Justices ruled the state can continue to ban abortion starting at six weeks of gestation, when the current law states a ‘fetal heartbeat’ can begin to be detected.
Abortions in the state have been banned as soon as a health care provider can detect “cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac,” under a 2023 law called the Fetal Heartbeat Protection from Abortion Act.
Many other states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Idaho, have passed similar “heartbeat” abortion bans, with some Republican-led states doing so after the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The law states that such cardiac activity occurs at around six weeks after conception, but Planned Parenthood challenged the law’s merit in court, arguing that it uses an alternative definition of when the fetal heart forms and when a heartbeat starts.
They argue that this type of “cardiac activity does not occur until all four chambers of the heart have formed” and that a “heartbeat” ban should start at around nine or 10 weeks after conception.
Justices noted in their ruling that the definition of a “fetal heartbeat” in the 2023 law is ambiguous and does not convey a “clear, definite meaning.”
“Not one of the terms the General Assembly used in the definition-not ‘cardiac activity’ nor ‘steady,’ ‘repetitive,’ ‘rhythmic,’ ‘contraction,’ ‘fetal heart,’ nor even ‘gestational sac,’-is a precise medically defined term,” they wrote.
Health care workers disagree on the precise meaning of these words, they added, which forced them to “turn to rules of statutory construction and other evidence of what the General Assembly intended.”
Associate Justice John Few wrote in the ruling that the language of the 2023 law was identical to a 2021 version of the law, which was understood to mean a six-week abortion ban.
Because lawmakers understood the law to mean abortions should be banned in the state at six weeks, that is how lawmakers should interpret the 2023 act.
“We count at least sixty separate instances during the 2023 legislative session in which a member of the House or Senate referred to the 2023 Act as a six-week ban on abortion, many of which specifically referenced the Court’s analysis of the 2021 Act,” he wrote. “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.”
Anti-abortion groups called the Supreme Court’s decision a victory.
“Planned Parenthood has failed in attempting to rewrite the science of human development to further their agenda for more abortions and more profit,” said Caitlin Connors, political director of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
As did South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R).
“Time and time again, we have defended the right to life in South Carolina, and time and time again, we have prevailed,” the governor wrote in a statement.
“Today’s ruling is another clear and decisive victory that will ensure the lives of countless unborn children remain protected and that South Carolina continues to lead the charge in defending the sanctity of life.”
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood vowed to continue to challenge the law until South Carolinians can receive abortion care.
“Justice did not prevail today, and the people of South Carolina are paying the price,” said Paige Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, in a statement.
“People have been forced to carry pregnancies against their will, suffered life-threatening infections, and died as a direct result of this abortion ban. The cruel politics of South Carolina lawmakers are harming families and destroying a health care system as more and more providers feel the state. But we will never back down, and neither should you.”
