Court opinion clarifies when fetal heartbeat occurs, upholding a six-week ban on abortions in South Carolina
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Supreme Court has issued an opinion upholding the state’s “fetal heartbeat” law, banning abortions after six weeks.
Today’s opinion addressed the narrow question as to when a fetal heartbeat occurs — at six or nine weeks.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and Dr. Katherine Farris, on behalf of their patients, physicians and staff, had argued that fetal heartbeat does not occur until after the formation of all four chambers of the heart, usually around nine weeks in a pregnancy.
The state had argued it occurs at approximately six weeks, “based on medically and objectively observable evidence that a medical professional may identify,” according to court documents.
Writing the opinion, Justice John Cannon Few stated the justices’ decision clarified the law’s legal standards and legislative intent, as defined in the 2023 South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act. In that “our interpretation of the term is not based on an assessment of the number of weeks a woman has been pregnant. Instead, it is based on medically and objectively observable evidence that a medical professional may identify. Tracking the language of the 2023 Act, we hold the term ‘fetal heartbeat ‘refers to ‘a biologically identifiable moment in time’ which a medical professional may objectively determine to have occurred by the existence of the ‘cardiac activity’ of electrical impulses detectable as a ‘sound’ with diagnostic medical technology such as a transvaginal ultrasound device. Under the 2023 Act, this cardiac activity marks the point beyond which most abortions may not be carried out when the medical professional observes it as a ‘steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart’ during any stage of the heart’s development ‘within the gestational sac.’
“While we do not frame our holding today in the shorthand terms of a number of weeks, the biologically identifiable moment in time we hold is the “fetal heartbeat” under the 2023 Act occurs in most instances at approximately six weeks of pregnancy”
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster issued the following statement after the court’s opinion:
“Time and time again, we have defended the right to life in South Carolina, and time and time again, we have prevailed. Today’s ruling is another clear and decisive victory that will ensure the lives of countless unborn children remain protected and that South Carolina continues to lead the charge in defending the sanctity of life.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also released a statement, Jace Woodrum, Executive Director of the ACLU of South Carolina, citing a 2023 Winthrop Poll that found only 37% of South Carolinians support a six week ban on abortion:
“The extreme ban on most abortions is endangering the lives of pregnant South Carolinians and driving medical care providers away from our state. Many people do not find out they are pregnant until after the six-week cutoff that is now being imposed under South Carolina law, and the list of exceptions is so narrow that doctors are struggling to provide life-saving reproductive care for fear of criminal prosecution. Until South Carolina ends its pattern of blatant gerrymandering, a loud and regressive minority will continue to steer our politics via primary elections, resulting in continued erosion of our reproductive freedom.”
