South Carolina Supreme Court reinstates law protecting the unborn

The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a law to protect unborn children. The state’s high court in January ruled 3-2 that an earlier version of the heartbeat law was unconstitutional. On Wednesday, a slightly different bench on the court voted 4-1 to effectively reverse that decision, upholding nearly identical legislation passed in May. Unborn children are now protected from abortion after 6 weeks in the womb. South Carolina Supreme Court Justice John Kittredge wrote in the majority opinion that the legislature’s work to protect the lives of unborn children is “indisputable” and must be respected by the court.

What has changed? The ruling comes after South Carolina Justice Kaye Hearn retired earlier this year and was replaced by Justice Gary Hill. Lisa Van Riper, president of South Carolina Citizens for Life, commended the court and the other public officials’ “work to protect the least among us.”

Dig Deeper: Read Leah Savas’ report in Vitals about state legislatures passing laws to spell out medical exceptions in laws protecting babies from abortion.