COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina legislators charged with negotiating future restrictions to abortion have yet to agree on a compromise bill that could actually pass the Legislature before the legislative session officially ends next week.
On Tuesday, a group of six legislators failed to reach a consensus on H. 5399 after the only two actual proposals submitted included bans on abortion at conception, a limit the Senate’s Republican leader said multiple times would not have enough votes to pass the upper chamber, though one Republican said he’s holding out hope.
The three House members and three senators — which includes one Democrat from each chamber, who are also the only two women on the committee — agreed to return to Columbia next Wednesday, the morning after Election Day, to see whether the near-impossible task of passing a restrictive abortion ban a few days before the legislative session ends, Nov. 13, can even happen.
Including Wednesday, the day after a new state House is elected, legislators would have two days to pass a bill and send it to Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk for his signature. Friday, Nov. 11, is a federal holiday.
“It’s clear to me that the base of the Senate (bill) is the only thing that has a chance to get the votes in the Senate, and I think that is razor thin,” said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, who said legislators will potentially have more proposals to show next week. “If the goal is to pass something, I think it has to be very close to the Senate version. If that’s not the goal, then I guess it doesn’t matter what you bring out.”
Lawmakers returned to Columbia for a special session this year to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned the 1973 landmark case Roe v. Wade and empowered states to further ban abortions. But neither the S.C. House nor Senate have been able to agree on how restrictive an abortion ban should be.
The House bill would ban abortions at conception but include exceptions for rape, incest and the mother’s life.
The Senate version tweaks the state’s existing six-week law by narrowing the window to get an abortion in cases of sexual assault to the first trimester, or 12 weeks, and includes an exception for the mother’s life and fatal fetal anomaly, the latter which would require two doctors to sign off.
Any agreement on a bill would require votes from two members each from the House and Senate side of the negotiating committee. The two Democrats, state Rep. Spencer Wetmore, of Charleston, and Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, of Colleton, are unlikely to agree on sending a bill out to the floor.
“I don’t think I would support any final product, no,” Wetmore told reporters. “I don’t think that there’s any amount of lipstick on the pig. I think this is a cruel and restrictive bill, and I don’t know that there’s any amount of changing and modifying and mollifying that would make it” good.
South Carolina’s six-week law, which bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, is currently blocked by the state Supreme Court as it mulls whether the law violates the state’s constitutional right to privacy.
Massey called the House decision to reject the Senate’s version of the bill, which senators say fixes language in the six-week ban that led to the injunction, “a bad strategic move.”
“It has now put us in the position where we can’t fix stuff,” he added.
Republican state Rep. John McCravy, who joined Sen. Richard Cash, R-Anderson, in filing proposals Tuesday that would ban abortions at conception, said he is still holding out hope the six negotiators can reach an agreement.
“Well, there was no chance that the 1969 (New York) Mets would win the World Series either,” the Greenwood Republican told reporters after the Tuesday meeting. “So you don’t know what’s going to happen until you have the actual vote. I never give up, and I don’t think people who are pro-life want to give up. We still have a chance, and we want to try to take all the opportunity that we can.”
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