Last week the South Carolina State Supreme Court upheld that state’s new law banning abortions after the sixth week of gestation. Bills which ban abortions after the sixth week are known as heartbeat bills because that is when a baby’s heartbeat is normally first detected. Writing for the majority, Justice John Kittredge said that while the new law infringes on a woman’s right of privacy and bodily autonomy, the South Carolina Legislature had reasonably determined this time that “interest of the unborn child to live” outweighs the interest of the mother. I wholeheartedly agree.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v.Wade last year, decisions about abortion were returned to the individual states. Several states, including Nebraska, introduced legislation this year further restricting abortions. Earlier this year the Nebraska State Legislature passed a bill, which lowered the threshold on legal abortions from 20 weeks of gestation down to 12 weeks of gestation.
The original version of the bill (LB 626) was a heartbeat bill, which called for a six-week ban on abortions, but it failed to advance. For a while it looked like the bill would never pass.
