Fight over abortion restrictions in SC now centers on changes to 6-week ban bill

Last Easter, Jill and Mark Hartle were looking forward to their dream coming true: the birth of their first baby.

“We were so excited to learn that we were expecting our first baby and little girl that we would name Ivy Grace Hartle,” Jill Hartle said. “This is what we’ve always dreamed of.”

But after learning that their baby had a rare heart defect and would die soon after birth, Jill Hartle said the state of South Carolina “turned its back” on them.

“This state made our excruciating decision (to terminate pregnancy) that much more stressful because not only could MUSC (Medical University of South Carolina) not care for us, but we would also have to travel and figure out all the logistics and financial pieces on our own. Once we made this tough decision, we had to wait two additional agonizing weeks to receive out-of-state care because that was the first available appointment. We traveled to Washington, D.C. to terminate our pregnancy on Monday, Sept. 12, when my child went to be free and in heaven.”

Jill Hartle shared her story on Tuesday with a panel of House lawmakers, who by a 3-2 vote advanced S. 474, a bill that would block abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, typically around the sixth week of pregnancy, when most women don’t know they’re pregnant, critics say.

Dr. Sharai Amaya, a Greenwood obstetrician and gynecologist with 18 years of experience, on Tuesday testified abortion care is “not health care for either the mother or the fetus.”

“I know beyond any reasonable doubt that a human fetus is indeed a living human being,” Amaya said. “It has often been my experience to witness a woman begin to cry when she sees the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. This is no reaction to a clump of cells or a tumor. The woman cries because they can see clearly the life inside of them.”

The full House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the measure later Tuesday afternoon, according to Judiciary Chairman Newton Weston, R-Beaufort.

Also known as the ”fetal heartbeat” bill, the proposal would provide limited exceptions for abortions, including in cases of rape or incest during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, in medical emergencies, or in light of a fatal fetal anomaly.

Since last fall, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision striking down Roe v. Wade, ongoing debates have ensued in the State House over how restrictive an abortion ban should be. Last month, the Senate rejected a near-total abortion ban backed by the House.

Jill Hartle, who said Tuesday that she’s always been a proud South Carolinian conservative until last year, said a mother shouldn’t be subjected to having a baby that’ll require extensive life-long medical care.

“If I were to have delivered and opted for comfort care, Ivy would have known nothing but high doses of narcotics and excruciating pain until she passed,” she said.

“The extra stress that this state has caused me has caused so much mental trauma I will deal with it for the rest of my life, all because my state decided that placing judgment moral high ground was more important than giving us and our doctors the compassion to do what we knew was best,” Jill continued.

House Majority Leader Davey Hiott told The State last week that any floor debate over the six-week ban bill would likely occur Thursday, the final day of the legislative session, which ends at 5 p.m. However, given the Legislature has no sine die resolution, outlining what lawmakers can debate after session ends, lawmakers could decide to debate the bill if and when the governor calls them back.

Several House amendments to the bill, however, will likely set up another fight with the Senate, which has to approve the changes before the measure becomes law.

“I think if they (the House) change one thing in there, as much as a semicolon, that we’re not going to accept it. The women aren’t, and I hope the other people who stood with us won’t accept it too,” state Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, one of five women in the Senate, all who voted against the near-total ban last month, said last week.

Should both chambers agree on the bill’s final version, it’ll head to Gov. Henry McMaster, who said Monday he “thinks it’s (the six-week proposal) a good bill.”

“Well, I think (S. 474) is just about the same thing as the ‘heartbeat’ bill with a little bit of change,” McMaster said. “I thought that was a reasonable approach that passed the House and the Senate, (that) the court upended. This was a little different, I understand to meet those objections, but I think that was a reasonable compromise that was acceptable to most of the people in the state.”

Still, critics of S. 437 say the measure continues to defy a January state Supreme Court decision that said the state’s six-week law at the time was an unconstitutional violation of a person’s right to privacy.

Kathleen McDaniel, an attorney who represented Planned Parenthood before the state Supreme Court in its recent ruling, said Tuesday that while the bill has some technical differences compared to last year’s version, it maintains an element already ruled unconstitutional by the court.

“The concept of banning abortion at six weeks is exactly the same whether you add exceptions, whether you narrow down that limitation or not,” McDaniel said. “So, no matter how you slice it and dice it and try to add additional revisions ... if the six week ban remains the centerpiece of the bill, it will remain unconstitutional.”

Jill Hartle asked lawmakers Tuesday not to make reproductive rights a political issue, but rather a humanity issue, a distinction, she said, some lawmakers fail to realize.

“If these bans continue to be placed, this is the uttermost breach of privacy any government could impose,” Jill Hartle said. “The Republican Party that I used to align with wanted less government, but these bills are total control. Why?”

Reporter Joseph Bustos contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.