The invoice now heads to Republican Gov. Henry McMaster who has promised to signal it
The South Carolina Senate voted Tuesday to ban abortion after round six weeks of being pregnant — earlier than most individuals know they’re pregnant — and despatched the invoice to Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who has stated he’ll signal it.
The measure was handed by a vote of 27 to 19, and solely consists of exceptions for the affected person’s life and well being, for deadly fetal anomalies and as much as 12 weeks for rape and incest circumstances. Medical doctors who violate the ban would lose their license, face felony fees carrying two years imprisonment, and a $10,000 high quality.
South Carolina is among the many final refuges within the American South for these searching for authorized abortion. Abortion is banned or severely restricted all through being pregnant in a lot of the area together with Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. If signed by the governor, the ban would instantly go into impact, and make Virginia an outlier as a state the place ladies nonetheless have unrestricted entry to abortions.
Tuesday’s vote ended a filibuster led by the chamber’s 5 feminine senators, together with three Republicans, who name themselves the “Sister Senators.” Final week, the Home permitted the Senate’s virtually six-week ban, sending it again with a listing of amendments. Republican Sen. Katrina Shealy, who voted towards the ban, accused the ban’s supporters of “voting for political causes” and stated the laws was “not what the folks of South Carolina need.”