COLUMBIA, S.C. — When a trio of Republican state lawmakers launched a invoice final 12 months that will topic ladies who receive abortions to many years in jail, some reproductive rights advocates feared South Carolina would possibly move the “most extreme” abortion ban in the US.
Now, although, it appears unlikely to grow to be state legislation. In November, a vote to advance the invoice past a legislative subcommittee failed. 4 out of six Republicans on the Senate Medical Affairs Committee subpanel refused to vote on the measure.
Republican state Sen. Jeff Zell stated throughout a November subcommittee listening to that he wished to assist “move this pro-life football down the field and to save as many babies as we can.” Nonetheless, he couldn’t help the invoice as written.
“What I am interested in is speaking on behalf of the South Carolinian,” he stated, “and they’re not interested in this bill right now or this issue right now.”
Whereas that invoice stalled, it indicators that abortion will proceed to loom giant throughout 2026 legislative classes. Greater than three years after the Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade, measures associated to abortion have already been prefiled in a number of states, together with Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, and Virginia.
In the meantime, the South Carolina invoice additionally uncovered a rift amongst Republicans. Some GOP lawmakers are desirous to attraction to their most conservative supporters by pursuing extra restrictive abortion legal guidelines, regardless of the dearth of help for such measures amongst most voters.
Till not too long ago, the concept of charging ladies who receive abortions with a criminal offense was thought-about “politically toxic,” stated Steven Greene, a political science professor at North Carolina State College.
But at the least 15 states launched “abortion as homicide” payments throughout 2024-2025 legislative classes, lots of which included the loss of life penalty as a possible sentence, in keeping with Dana Sussman, senior vice chairman of Being pregnant Justice, a company that tracks the criminalization of being pregnant outcomes.
Regardless that none of these payments was signed into legislation, Sussman known as this “a hugely alarming trend.”
“My fear is that one of these will end up passing,” she stated.
Lower than a month after the invoice stalled in South Carolina, one other invoice — which might create prison penalties for “coercion to obtain an abortion” — was prefiled forward of the Jan. 13 begin of the state’s legislative session.
“The issue is not going away. It’s a moral issue,” stated state Sen. Richard Money, who launched the abortion invoice that stalled within the subcommittee. “How far we can go, and what successes we can have, remain to be seen.”
‘Wrongful Death’
Florida legislation already bans abortion after six weeks of being pregnant. However a Republican lawmaker launched a invoice in October proposing civil legal responsibility for the “wrongful death” of a fetus. If enacted, the measure will enable dad and mom to sue for the loss of life of an unborn baby, making them eligible for compensation, together with damages for psychological ache and struggling.
The invoice says neither the mom nor a medical supplier giving “lawful” care might be sued. However anybody else deemed to have acted with “negligence,” together with somebody who helps procure abortion-inducing drugs or a physician who performs an abortion after six weeks, might be sued by one of many dad and mom.
In Missouri, a constitutional modification to legalize abortion handed in 2024 with 51.6% of the vote. In 2026, state lawmakers are asking voters to repeal the modification they only handed. A brand new proposed modification would successfully reinstate the state’s ban on most abortions, with new exceptions for instances of rape, incest, and medical emergencies.
“I think that’s a middle-of-the-road, common sense proposal that most Missourians will agree with,” stated Ed Lewis, a Republican state consultant who sponsored the laws to place the measure on the poll.
Lewis stated the 2024 modification went too far in permitting a authorized foundation to problem all of Missouri’s abortion restrictions, typically known as “targeted regulation of abortion providers,” or TRAP, legal guidelines. Even earlier than Missouri’s outright ban, the variety of abortions recorded within the state had dropped from 5,772 in 2011 to 150 in 2021.
In the meantime, Lewis backed one other proposed constitutional modification that can seem on the 2026 poll. That measure would make it more durable for Missourians to amend the state structure, by requiring any modification to obtain a majority of votes in every congressional district.
One evaluation steered as few as 5% of voters might defeat any poll measure underneath the proposal. Lewis dismissed the evaluation as a “Democratic talking point.”
‘Gerrymandered’ Districts
Republican lawmakers aren’t essentially aiming to move abortion legal guidelines that attraction to the broadest swath of voters of their states.
Polling carried out forward of Missouri’s vote in 2024 confirmed 52% of the state’s probably voters supported the constitutional modification to guard entry to abortion, a slim majority that was per the ultimate vote.
In Texas, state legislation presents no exceptions for abortion in instances of rape or incest, regardless that a 2025 survey discovered 83% of Texans imagine the process needs to be authorized underneath these circumstances.
In South Carolina, a 2024 ballot discovered solely 31% of respondents supported the state’s current six-week abortion ban, which prohibits the process normally after fetal cardiac exercise could be detected.
However Republicans maintain supermajorities within the South Carolina Basic Meeting, and a few proceed to push for a near-total abortion ban regardless that such a legislation would most likely be broadly unpopular. That’s as a result of district traces have been drawn in such a approach that politicians usually tend to be ousted by a extra conservative member of their very own celebration in a major than defeated by a Democrat in a basic election, stated Scott Huffmon, director of the Middle for Public Opinion & Coverage Analysis at Winthrop College.
The South Carolina legislature is “so gerrymandered that more than half of the seats in both chambers were uncontested in the last general election. Whoever wins the primary wins the seat,” Huffmon stated. “The best way to win the primary — or, better yet, prevent a primary challenge at all — is to run to the far right and embrace the policies of the most conservative people in the district.”
That’s what some proposals, together with the “abortion as homicide” payments, replicate, stated Greene, the North Carolina State professor. Lawmakers might vote for such a measure and endure “very minimal, if any,” political backlash, he stated.
“Most of the politicians passing these laws are more concerned with making the base happy than with actually dramatically reducing the number of abortions that take place within their jurisdiction,” Greene stated.
But the variety of abortions carried out in South Carolina has dropped dramatically — by 63% from 2023 to 2024, when the state enacted the prevailing ban, in keeping with knowledge revealed by the state’s Division of Public Well being.
Kimya Forouzan, a coverage adviser with the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion laws all through the nation and advocates for reproductive rights, stated South Carolina’s try and move “the most extreme bill that we have seen” is “part of a pattern.”
“I think the push for anti-abortion legislation exists throughout the country,” she stated. “There are a lot of battles that are brewing.”
KFF Well being Information correspondent Daniel Chang and Southern bureau chief Sabriya Rice contributed to this report.
