Except in cases of rape, incest or life of the mother, South Carolina’s Senate on Thursday voted to outlaw 28-10 nearly all abortions across the entire state.
According to local reports, legislators claim that if enacted, the law would ban roughly 97 percent of the state’s 5,700 abortions performed annually.
While the bill still has to make it through the state House, past the governor’s desk and through an inevitable gauntlet of court challenges before it’s implemented, lawmakers say that’s not really the point.
"It's designed to give the court an opportunity to revisit Roe v. Wade," said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield.
The Senate had originally planned to vote on a bill specifically banning dismemberment abortions, one of the most grotesque forms of abortion performed in later trimesters in which an abortionist dissects the unborn baby and uses forceps to pull it from its mother’s womb in pieces.
In a last-minute change Wednesday night, though, the Senate moved to amend the bill to include all abortions with standard exceptions, saying a bill banning abortion outright would be more likely to make it to the courts for a final ruling.