Abortion ban advances, but SC senator vows to stop it from going further

COLUMBIA — A strict abortion ban that threatens to send women to prison for two years advanced Tuesday to the Senate floor, where a block on further debate is guaranteed.

The Senate Medical Affairs Committee advanced the bill with an 8-4 vote along party lines, with one exception: Republican Sen. Tom Davis voted “no” and repeated his pledge to fight the bill from getting further. (See info box below for a full breakdown.)

It was Davis’ threatened filibuster that blocked a ban from conception in fall 2022, when the Legislature returned for special sessions after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade. The General Assembly eventually passed a law in 2023 banning abortions after six weeks, which Davis voted for, but he’s made clear he can’t support an all-out ban.

“I’m going to do whatever I can to prevent this bill from ever becoming law in South Carolina,” Davis, of Beaufort, said Tuesday, echoing a promise he made before session began in January.

The 2024 elections newly gave the GOP a supermajority in the chamber.

But a bill that bans abortions from the onset of a pregnancy, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest — and punishes women for seeking abortions — still lacks enough support to clear the chamber, Davis said. Under Senate rules, putting the bill in a special debate status to override his objection would take two-thirds approval. If supporters manage a workaround to begin debate, ending Davis’ filibuster would still take 26 senators agreeing to sit him down and get to a vote.

Stricter abortion ban advances in SC Senate, months after previous plan rejected

“I’m not really sure what we’re doing here,” Davis said. “This bill isn’t going to get debated on the calendar. This bill couldn’t muster 15 votes in that Senate.”

The Republican caucus has had no conversations about the bill, said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield.

Even without a filibuster, timing makes the possibility of passage unlikely.

This week, the Senate is debating its state spending proposal. The budget package is in a special priority status that doesn’t allow any other bills to be debated.

If senators wrap that up this week, that leaves just nine days in the regular legislative session.

The bill was advanced from a committee chaired by one of its co-sponsors, Sen. Danny Verdin of Laurens.

A Senate panel rejected an even stricter bill last fall.

The latest effort would ban abortions from the moment a doctor could determine a woman was pregnant. It would remove exceptions for victims of rape or incest, who can get an abortion through the 12th week under existing law. It would also remove exceptions for fetal anomalies so severe that doctors don’t expect the baby to survive outside the womb.

It enables civil lawsuits as a way of enforcement. And the bill would reclassify abortion-inducing drugs in an attempt to restrict access.

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The proposal goes too far, Davis said, calling it “offensive to women.”

“This law is so out of step with where South Carolinians are,” Davis said. “It does not create a culture of life. It creates a culture of surveillance, of family conflict, of legal terror. It sends a horrible message.”

Cash, the main sponsor, said he and Davis fundamentally disagree. The father of eight has made banning abortions without exceptions his primary issue since his 2017 election to the Senate.

“Either you believe that a human life begins at conception and should have legal protection, or you don’t,” the Anderson Republican told reporters after the meeting. “There are quite a lot of people, myself included, who would say ‘yes.’”

Discussion in the committee mostly involved minutiae of phrasing and technical applications under the bill. Democrats picked apart the wording and implications, questioning what might cause extra problems.

The smallest words matter in a bill that would almost certainly face a court challenge, Sen. Deon Tedder, a North Charleston Democrat, told his colleagues.

“Words do matter,” he said. “Commas matter. As an attorney, I know this.”

In 2024, two commas in the so-called “fetal heartbeat” law were central to a lawsuit from Planned Parenthood questioning the timing of the ban.

With no language in the law referring to pregnancy weeks, courts were asked to interpret whether it actually took effect at six weeks or nine.

The state’s highest court upheld the ban at six weeks. But that wasn’t settled until two years after the law’s passage.

That proves phrasing matters, argued the Democrats on the committee, who are all attorneys.

Even if his latest bill ultimately goes no further, Cash said, he’s glad senators took it up and moved it along.

“I can’t control the future,” he said. “I can’t control anything and everything that’s going to happen. But part of my job is to simply present what I believe is right and good and true and just take it one step at a time from there.”

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Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette