COLUMBIA, S.C. (Friday, July 15, 2022) South Carolina pro-life officials have vowed to fight the lawsuit Planned Parenthood and a private abortion business have filed seeking to have the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act overturned by a state court.

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic that operates two abortion businesses in South Carolina, and the Greenville Women’s Clinic, a privately owned abortion business, filed the lawsuit Wednesday according to a press release from Planned Parenthood.

A well-placed pro-life source familiar with the lawsuit said Thursday, “I verified today that the House will intervene alongside the Governor and the Attorney General,” to seek dismissal of the state case. A federal lawsuit seeking to void the Fetal Heartbeat Act was ended on June 27, 2022, three days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in the Dobbs v. Jackson case. The Supreme Court said the states individually should decide laws governing abortion.

A spokesman for pro-life S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson told Bloomberg Law the lawsuit was expected and that his office is “prepared to defend the state’s laws.”

South Carolina Citizens for Life President Lisa Van Riper called the new lawsuit, “disgusting.” She said, “By challenging a reasonable law which had bi-partisan support, Planned Parenthood shows that it is committed to stopping the heartbeats of human being. If they won’t protect the heartbeats of the smallest among our human family, why would you trust them with yours?”

Most abortions are for birth control, research shows. “While a small proportion of women who have abortions do so because of health concerns or fetal anomalies, the large majority choose termination in response to unintended pregnancy,” according to a 2005 study published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

David O’Steen, Ph.D., the National Right to Life Executive Director, wrote in the July issue of National Right to Life News that the “Democratic party of abortion plans to use every trick at their disposal to try to thwart the Constitution and thwart the right of the people to govern themselves...anything goes for them as long as it prolongs the killing.”

 

According to a press release from Planned Parenthood, the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat law forces the abortion business to turn customers away. Ironically, the statement alleges that the Fetal Heartbeat Act should be overturned because it “disproportionately affects Black people.” Here is the irony. Black people make up 28 percent of the population of South Carolina, but 44 percent of the babies aborted are black babies, according to data maintained by the State Department of Health and Environmental Control. Disproportionate indeed. It’s called genocide.