Press Release
From: South Carolina Citizens for Life
Date: January 28, 2020
For further information, contact Holly Gatling at (803) 730-1095
Pro-Abortion Faction in General Assembly Creating Phony Distraction to Pro-Life Law
The following statement may be attributed to Lisa C. Van Riper, President of South Carolina Citizens for Life.
Members of the South Carolina General Assembly who oppose life for unborn children have for decades pulled every tactic to stop common sense laws even laws designed to give pregnant women real choices: Informed Consent, Right to View an Ultrasound, Right to Know about alternatives to abortion.
Bamberg Democratic Representative Justin Bamberg's request for an Attorney General's opinion on the H3020, the Heartbeat bill, after it has already been passed by the House and is awaiting debate in the Senate - a chamber in which Representative Bamberg is not a member - is an additional example of a delaying tactic to obstruct passage of another
commonsense life-affirming bill. Members of the Senate should not be diverted by this latest attempt to delay this historic legislation.
Attorney General Alan Wilson has pledged to defend pro-life legislation that passes the General Assembly including the Heartbeat Bill (H 3020) that prohibits abortion once the baby's heartbeat can be detected. South Carolina Citizens for Life is confident that the Attorney General would not have agreed to defend the bill had he not already found it
defensible.
The 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade and its companion Doe v. Bolton legalized abortion on demand for all nine months of pregnancy and for any reason. These two decisions created a toxic environment of "choice" - toxic for pregnant women and lethal for unborn children. When Roe v. Wade was decided, there was no choice granted for
the unborn members of the human family and no guarantee of protection of or information for women.
South Carolina Citizens for Life was instrumental in helping to pass the state's first pro-life law, Parental Consent. The law was basic, common sense legislation that gave parents the right to say no to abortions for their underage girls. But those who promoted "choice" opposed the law that would protect underage girls from secret abortions
behind their parents' backs without the parents' knowledge and consent. At that time, the abortion advocates in the General Assembly tried desperately to kill the Parental Consent bill by filibuster and proposing dozens of amendments intended to make the law ineffective.
For the last 30 years since the first pro-life law was passed, the General Assembly has continued to pass common-sense, life-affirming legislation that has protected women, the unborn and the medically fragile. Throughout that time, these laws have been challenged through various procedural tactics and threatened legal challenges. Nothing has
changed during debate on the Heartbeat Bill.
During House debate on this bill, Representative Bamberg tried, with dozens of amendments, to stop the Heatbeat bill from passing the House. But during that time, he did not ask for an Attorney General's opinion. Therefore, one must question whether his goal in soliciting this opinion now is to obtain information or to create a last-minute
distraction.
Since 1990 the South Carolina General Assembly has passed 15 common sense, reasonable life-protecting laws and abortions have declined in South Carolina by 67 percent. Legislation saves innocent babies' lives; 184,391 babies are living today because of protective laws.
The Heartbeat Bill is an objective science-based standard that connects the heartbeat of the human being to legal protection. The presence of a beating heart has long been used to recognize the presence of life and its absence used as an indicator of the end of life. Yet in the case of the unborn child the heartbeat is ignored. It is
time to stop ignoring the beating hearts of the unborn members of our human family. Abortion Stops a Beating Heart.
Numerous pro-life and pro-family organizations representing hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians who vote pro-life support passage of H3020, the Heartbeat Bill. In addition to South Carolina Citizens for Life these include the South Carolina Baptist Convention, the Catholic Diocese of Charleston, Palmetto Family, the South Carolina
Association of Pregnancy Care Centers, the South Carolina Christian Chamber of Commerce, and many others.
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