Photo: Tracy Glantz/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty
South Carolina senators voted Thursday to reject a near-total ban on abortions in the state after a threatened filibuster.
The special session was called in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturnRoe v. Wadeearlier this year,The Associated Pressreported.
AP said that five republicans — including all of the chamber’s women — were among those who refused to support the bill, which did not allow for exceptions such as rape or incest. The bill now goes back to the House.
Under the state’s current six-week ban, which is currently suspended while the Supreme Court determines whether it violates privacy rights, rape and incest victims can receive an abortion before 20 weeks. The State Senate proposal reduces it to 12 weeks, according to theNew York Times. The law would also require doctors who perform abortions in cases of rape and incest to report the crime to law enforcement and send a DNA sample of the fetal tissue to local police.
Davis told AP that he had promised his daughters he would not vote to make South Carolina’s already imposed six-week abortion ban more strict.
“The moment we become pregnant we lost all control over what goes on with our bodies,” he recalled his daughters saying to him. “I’m here to tell you I’m not going to let it happen.”
AP said the debate began Wednesday when three Republican politicians voiced their opinions that they could not support the bill unless rape or incest exceptions were restored after it was removed from the billearlier this week.
Sen. Katrina Shealy said, “You want to believe that God is wanting you to push a bill through with no exceptions that kill mothers and ruins the lives of children — lets mothers bring home babies to bury them — then I think you’re miscommunicating with God. Or maybe you aren’t communicating with Him at all.”
source: people.com
