For the second time, the South Carolina Supreme Court has upheld the statewide ban on aborting unborn babies six weeks or older, during the pregnancy phase in which a baby’s heartbeat can typically be detected by an ultrasound.

The 2023 Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act was signed by Republican Gov. Henry McMaster. The act prohibits abortions after “cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac” is detected in an ultrasound.

The state’s Supreme Court previously upheld the law in August 2023 in a 4-1 ruling.

Planned Parenthood has been challenging the act since 2021, the year in which the original version passed. The court eventually ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood.

After the revised 2o23 version was introduced, Planned Parenthood once again sued the state but lost in the case after the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed a lower circuit court’s decision, which had favored Planned Parenthood’s claim that the act is unconstitutional.

Later that year, Planned Parenthood sued once again, asserting that a “fetal heartbeat” refers to an abortion at around nine weeks, based on further development of the heart chambers. They also argued that rather than cardiac activity, the ultrasound could be detecting electrical impulses at six weeks.

The state won in the circuit court. However, Planned Parenthood appealed again, which brought the case to the state’s Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the law on May 14.

In its majority opinion, the court disputed Planned Parenthood’s contention that the law should be understood as a nine-week ban, noting that the General Assembly regarded the law as establishing an approximate six-week threshold. 

“Not only did the General Assembly say nothing of any misunderstanding on our part in referring to the 2021 Act as a six-week abortion ban, but the General Assembly itself debated and discussed the 2023 Act exclusively in terms of a six-week threshold beyond which most abortions may not occur.”

The document states that the court counted “at least sixty separate instances during the 2023 legislative session in which a member of the House or Senate referred to the 2023 Act as a six-week ban on abortion” and that the court “could find not one instance during the entire 2023 legislative session in which anyone connected in any way to the General Assembly framed the Act as banning abortion after approximately nine weeks.”

McMaster released a statement after the court’s decision.

“Time and time again, we have defended the right to life in South Carolina, and time and time again, we have prevailed,” McMaster said. “Today’s ruling is another clear and decisive victory that will ensure the lives of countless unborn children remain protected and that South Carolina continues to lead the charge in defending the sanctity of life.”

Planned Parenthood and the state are in the midst of another lawsuit, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, in which the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in April on whether abortion providers can be blocked from Medicaid funds for non-abortion services.

Photo: Alamy