4th Circuit Upholds Decision to Block SC’s ‘Heartbeat’ Bill

RICHMOND, Va. — The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s decision to temporarily block South Carolina’s ban on abortions after six weeks.

Signed by Republican Gov. Henry McMaster last year, the law requires doctors to perform ultrasounds to check for a so-called “fetal heartbeat,” which can typically be detected about six weeks into pregnancy.

If cardiac activity is detected, the abortion can only be performed if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger.

Opponents have argued that many women do not even know they are pregnant at six weeks, and that by making the deadline so early, the state is leaving many women without the option to consider an abortion.

Many medical experts have also weighed in, saying the so-called “fetal heartbeat” is really nothing more than the movement of electricity in the cells in an embryo. According to these experts the actual heart doesn’t develop until weeks later.

Like other controversial abortion bans adopted in mostly Republican-led states over the past 12 months, the South Carolina law states that any person performing an abortion can be charged with a felony subject to up to two years in jail and a $10,000 fine if found guilty.

The Fourth Circuit’s review focused on the lower court’s decision to stay the entire law rather than to just toss the six-week ‘fetal heartbeat’ provision of the law.

The lower court reasoned “it was appropriate to enjoin the act in its entirety because it determined that the remaining portions of the act were ‘mutually dependent on’ the six-week abortion ban.”

“The district court reasonably determined that, notwithstanding the Act’s severability clause, its provisions were not severable,” the ruling continues. “A straightforward review of the function of each of the provisions remaining in the Act after the removal of the six-week abortion ban reveals that the entirety of the statute was designed to carry out the ban.”

South Carolina currently has three clinics that provide abortions and each of them is located in one of the state’s major cities — Charleston, Columbia and Greenville.

None of these clinics perform abortions after the first trimester and two of them only perform abortions two days a week.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in June on a challenge to a Mississippi law that bans all abortions after 15 weeks, a case that is seen as potentially altering the protections afforded women for decades under the landmark 1973 decision Roe v. Wade.

Roe guaranteed women the right to have an abortion. If the ruling is significantly altered or overturned, South Carolina and other conservative states could introduce new restrictions or even outright bans on abortion.

“The court’s decision means that — for now — our patients can continue to come to us, their trusted health care providers, to access abortion and other essential health services,” Jenny Black, president of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said in a statement following the ruling.

“However, the U.S. Supreme Court could unravel today’s victory by this summer, and South Carolina lawmakers are in a race to pass a complete ban on abortion,” Black said.

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