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Attempt to block South Carolina's 6-week abortion law to be heard in court Tuesday

Lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and others comes before court in Richland County Tuesday morning.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Greenville Women’s Clinic, and two physicians have filed suit against the state of South Carolina, Attorney General Alan Wilson and others who would impose the six-week abortion ban that comes in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Rove vs. Wade.

In papers filed with the court, the suit asserts the abortion ban “violates the South Carolina Constitution’s right to privacy and its guarantees of equal protection and due process.

The new six-week abortion ban prohibits abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat and carries felony criminal penalties and civil liability for those performing an abortion.

The lawsuit also states “In particular, the Act is an attack on families with low incomes, South Carolinians of color, and rural South Carolinians, who already face inequities in access to medical care and who will bear the brunt of the law’s cruelties. South Carolinians face a critical shortage of reproductive health care providers, including obstetrician-gynecologists, and the rate at which South Carolinians, particularly Black South Carolinians, die from pregnancy-related causes is shockingly high.

In response to this lawsuit, SC Attorney General Alan Wilson counters the state's Constitution's Section 10 dealing with privacy issues -- and adopted in 1971 -- dealt with protecting citizens from improper surveillance of electronic devices and computer data banks. He said, ""The committee simply did not intend or understand the provision to extend any further. It certainly did not intend to confer a state constitutional right to abortion." 

Arguments will be heard at 10 a.m. in Richland County Circuit Court in Columbia on Tuesday, July 26.

   

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