SC House of Representatives

The South Carolina House shows no signs of budging from its proposed abortion restrictions. For the second time since the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections, the chamber's Republican supermajority has passed a near-total ban. By a 83-31 vote on Wednesday, the House advanced a ban from conception. The bill has exceptions for rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly and the patient's health and life. The move puts the House proposal at odds with the Senate's ban on abortions after cardiac activity is detected, around six weeks.

Republicans have controlled the South Carolina House of Representatives for almost thirty years. Following last November’s election, they achieved a super-majority with 88 of the 124 house seats held by Republicans. Ever since last year’s Republican Primaries a deep rift has been developing between members of the Freedom Caucus and many members of the mainline Republican Caucus leading to most Freedom Caucus members refusing to agree to sign-on to a set of G-O-P rules that they feel is aimed at muzzling them.

South Carolina House Speaker Murrell Smith is using his power to assign members to committees to make sure bills are more closely scrutinized before they reach the chamber floor.

A vastly different South Carolina House has been sworn into office. The House held its organization session Tuesday, choosing Murrell Smith to serve his first full term as speaker. Nearly a quarter of the members — 27 of 124 — are newly elected.

South Carolina senators have again rejected a proposal to ban nearly all abortions in the state. But they left open a small chance Tuesday some compromise could be reached. The stalemate in the Republican-dominated Legislature hasn't changed for weeks. The Senate voted 26-17 Tuesday to insist on its bill keeping South Carolina's current ban on abortions after cardiac activity is present, usually around six weeks. The House insisted on its own version of a full ban last month with exceptions only for pregnancies from rape or incest, or if the mother's life were threatened. The bill now goes to a conference committee.

Whether conservative South Carolina changes its abortion laws at all in the wake of this year's U.S. Supreme Court decision is about to be decided by divided conservatives in the state House. Members on Tuesday either accept a Senate-passed bill that tweaks the state's six-week ban, or, the House can insist on its own bill outlawing all abortions except when the life of the mother is at risk or if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest. (That ban isn't in effect at the moment because of a state Supreme Court challenge.) Typically, the House and Senate would then negotiate their differences. But Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey says there aren't enough Republican votes in the Senate for anything stricter than the six-week ban.

South Carolina lawmakers are not yet done debating new abortion restrictions. House Speaker Murrell Smith announced Monday that the lower chamber will meet on Sept. 27. By then it will have been more than two weeks since the Senate sent back a proposal that looked markedly different from the ban passed earlier by the House. The House last month passed a ban at all stages of pregnancy with exceptions for rape and incest, as well as the life of the mother. The Senate last week passed a six-week ban that is slightly more restrictive than a law that's on hold and is also based on when cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo.

South Carolina senators are moving toward a showdown on a proposal to ban abortion and make no exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Senators failed twice to get the exceptions back into the bill Wednesday. A number of the 30 Republicans in the 46-member Senate say they can't support the bill without the exceptions because they don't want 14-year-old rape victims to have to give birth. On the other side, are Republicans who consider any abortion to be a crime that ends a life. Democrats have been united against the bill.

South Carolina's Senate debate on an abortion ban that would no longer include exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest started Wednesday with the chamber's three Republican women taking a stand against a bill they said doesn't respect women and doesn't respect life. On one side are absolutists who say any abortion ends a life. On the other are conservatives who have been watching developments in other states since Roe v. Wade was overturned. They don't want to force 14-year-old rape victims to give birth, or have mothers risk death by carrying fetuses that can't survive outside the womb. Democrats say they won't help Republicans change an awful bill into a very bad bill.

A group of South Carolina senators has voted to remove exceptions for rape and incest from a proposed abortion ban. Democrats chose not to vote Tuesday on the proposal in what appeared to be a strategy to try to prevent the bill from passing through the Legislature. The 7-3 vote in the Senate Medical Affairs Committee involved all Republican men. The committee then took a break before considering more changes as it decides whether to send the bill to the Senate floor. The same bill without the exceptions appeared to fail in the more conservative state House before some Republicans maneuvered it to allow abortions for rape and incest victims up to the 12th week of pregnancy.