The state of South Carolina is banning abortions after six weeks - before most women know they are pregnant.
The senate in the state passed a bill on Tuesday that would prohibit most abortions after approximately six weeks of pregnancy.
The bill has been sent to the Republican governor, who has promised to sign it into law as soon as possible.
It reinstates a ban from 2021 that was put into effect after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
However, the ban was overturned by the state's highest court because it violated the right to privacy stated in the state Constitution.
Following the Supreme Court's decision, South Carolina saw an increase in the number of abortions performed, as other southern states implemented stricter laws.
In many parts of the South, abortion is either banned or heavily restricted.
States like Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia have bans throughout pregnancy.
Georgia allows abortion only within the first six weeks.
Most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy will be banned in North Carolina beginning July 1 after the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature successfully overrode the Democratic governor’s veto last week.
A legal fight is widely expected in South Carolina. Vicki Ringer, the director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said Tuesday evening that her organisation would file a request for a temporary restraining order after Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signs the measure.
Any challenge that reaches the South Carolina Supreme Court would also face a new bench, as the lone woman who authored the leading opinion in the abortion case had reached the court’s retirement age.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey expressed confidence the law would stand.
“It has been a long and bumpy road but it was an important debate to have," Massey, a Republican, told reporters Tuesday.
"I’m glad we finally got a resolution on it. It’s something that’s going to make South Carolina not the abortion destination state of the Southeast and I think that’s important.”
The move marks the end of a months-long impasse between the two Republican-led chambers.
The South Carolina House backed off a proposal to ban abortion almost entirely at conception and passed the new restrictions last week after nearly 24 hours of debate split across two days.
Senators had tried three times to muster the votes necessary for the near-total ban over the past year.
The latest attempt failed last month after the only five women in the 46-member chamber successfully filibustered the proposal. Members of the coalition known as the “sister senators” — three Republicans, one Democrat and one independent — again fought the new bill.
In blistering speeches, the three Republican women said the six-week ban did not give women enough time to make a decision.
They urged other members of their party to adopt a 12-week abortion ban instead in what Sen. Katrina Shealy called a “real compromise."
“We in the South Carolina Legislature are not God. We do not know what’s going on in somebody else’s life. We do not have the right to make decisions for someone else,” Shealy said.
Shealy and Republican Sen. Penry Gustafson had voted for an earlier version of the six-week ban but said they could not support changes inserted by the House.
Shealy criticised a new requirement that biological fathers make child support payments beginning at conception as “ridiculousness”.
House Republicans also axed a provision expressly allowing minors to petition the court for an abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Republican Sen. Sandy Senn denounced new sections permitting civil lawsuits against doctors who violate the proposal and mandating that patients sign an additional form attesting that they had the chance to view the ultrasound.
She called the latter requirement an intimidation tactic that is “piling up the paperwork” on women.
Massey insisted the differences were “not significant” and largely technical changes necessary to satisfy one South Carolina Supreme Court justice who previously voted with the court's 3-2 majority to strike the last ban.
The bill includes exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies, the patient’s life and health, and rape or incest up to 12 weeks. Doctors could face felony charges carrying up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The Senate’s 15 Democrats, unified against both abortion bans, have largely let the Republican majority debate the issue among themselves.
As they have before, Democrats suggested Tuesday that voters should decide the matter.
Opponents have also argued that South Carolina’s high maternal mortality rates — with even poorer outcomes among Black patients — would grow worse under the new restrictions.
The three Republican women joined every Democrat in voting against the bill.
“I'm conflicted because I want to reduce abortions but I don't want to eliminate women's and mother's rights,” Gustafson told reporters after the vote.
Just like when they first entered the state House on Tuesday, the women of the Senate were greeted with rousing applause from the dozen remaining abortion rights supporters as they exited the chamber.
All five donned buttons that read “elect more women.”
Independent Sen. Mia McLeod said she was disheartened that a male-dominated chamber voted on a bill that would have a "devastating impact on women and girls for generations.”
“We should be initiating the discussions because we're the only ones who have firsthand knowledge about what it takes not only to give birth but to raise a child,” she told The Associated Press.
While those discussions may be over this session, some of the most ardent abortion opponents in both chambers are already looking ahead to the 2024 elections.
Republican Sen. Richard Cash acknowledged the Senate's current makeup lacked the votes for a stricter proposal but vowed that “the fight will continue” to outlaw all abortions. If he wins reelection, he said “there's going to certainly be a renewed effort to protect life at an earlier point in time.”
Shealy, a Republican who rejected assertions that she is a “baby killer” in her floor speech, cited conversations with “real people” in her conservative district as the impetus for her decision.
“I didn’t get elected to get reelected. I got elected to do the right thing," said Shealy.
