COLUMBIA, SC (Friday, February 19, 2021) We are not surprised by the abortion industry’s litigation to overturn the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and
Protection from Abortion Act nor by U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis’s order temporarily restraining enforcement of the
life-saving legislation.
Judge Lewis, an Obama appointee, issued a temporary restraining order blocking the heartbeat law from taking effect for two weeks.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson who has pledged to defend the law said, “We believe the Heartbeat Law is constitutional and deserves a vigorous defense to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. Every generation has a right and a duty to revisit issues as important as this one. The Heartbeat law protects life. Nothing is more important or fundamental. We look forward to
further arguing why this law should be valid.”
The Fetal Heartbeat Act passed the General Assembly Thursday, February 18, 2021, and was signed into law the same day by pro-life Governor Henry McMaster. It is the first time a pro-life law has passed the legislature and been ratified and signed into law all on the same day.
South Carolina Citizens for Life is grateful to all the pro-life elected officials who stand for life. With the current makeup of the US Supreme Court, South Carolina Citizens for Life sincerely hopes that the Fetal Heartbeat Bill will be upheld.
Litigation of pro-life laws is a process that has been going on since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that abortion is legal for all nine months of pregnancy and for any reason including as a method of birth control.
Now is an opportune time to become educated in the long history of abortion jurisprudence. Here is a factsheet of some of the most important abortion-related cases that have been before the U.S.
Supreme Court since Roe. I encourage all to familiarize themselves with this fascinating history.
The abortion industry has sued South Carolina’s pro-life laws twice since 1990. The first was its lawsuit to stop implementation of the Abortion Clinic Regulation that set minimum standards for
sanitation and cleanliness for free standing abortion facilities. The Abortion Clinic Regulation law was passed after South Carolina’s most notorious abortionist, Jesse Floyd, was exposed for
grinding up the bodies of aborted babies in a sink disposal and flushing the human remains into the public water system. See the documentary here.
In upholding the Abortion Clinic Regulations for South Carolina, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals noted that the regulations serve a valid state interest and are little more than a codification of national medical and abortion association recommendations designed to ensure the health and appropriate care of women seeking abortion.
The other time the abortion industry attacked a pro-life law was to stop production of Choose Life SC vehicle tags. This time the 4th Circuit sided with the abortion industry and ruled that because the General Assembly did not create a vehicle tag with a pro-abortion message, the pro-life message was struck down. Ironically, the legislature never was asked to create a
pro-abortion license tag.
In both of the above cases the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from either the abortion industry on the clinic regulations or from the state on the vehicle tags.
