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News > U.S.

South Carolina Makes Abortion Legal After Sixth Week

  • The ruling keeps unchanged the state's ban on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Jan. 5, 2023.

    The ruling keeps unchanged the state's ban on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Jan. 5, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@ReutersLegal

Published 5 January 2023
Opinion

In a 3-2 ruling, the court declared unconstitutional the State's law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. 
 

The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state's ban on abortion at six weeks violates the state constitution by infringing on privacy protections.

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Judge Kaye Hearn, who led the decision, said that "few decisions in life are more private than the decision to terminate a pregnancy."

"The state constitutional right to privacy extends to a woman's decision to have an abortion," Hearn wrote in the ruling's lead opinion.

Thus, the ban on abortion after the sixth week, which was implemented in the state in June 2022, is repealed. Its implementation was prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of the "Roe v. Wade" ruling, which had protected a pregnant woman's right to choose since 1973.

The U.S. federation Planned Parenthood, the Greenville Women's Clinic, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the law firm Burnette Shutt & McDaniel filed suit against the law in July 2022. The South Carolina Supreme Court blocked its implementation.

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic President and CEO Jenny Black and Center for Reproductive Rights President and CEO Nancy Northup welcomed today's court decision as a victory.

The ruling keeps unchanged the state's ban on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

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