The South Carolina Senate Medical Committee passed House Bill 5399 9-8, joining two Republican senators who voted against Democrats. The Senate is scheduled to meet on Wednesday.
Several state senators and representatives have said they cannot support a bill that does not include exceptions for rape and incest pregnancies.
A state Senate committee on Tuesday morning voted 7-3 to mandate reporting to law enforcement and rescind an exception added last week by the state House of Representatives for cases of rape or incest up to 12 weeks after conception. I was.
The committee’s vote to amend the bill involved only Republicans, with Democrats on the committee abstaining from the vote in an apparent strategic move to reduce the bill’s chances of passing the Senate.
Democratic Senator Marlon Kimpson said, “This is a bad bill,” and explained why he abstained from voting. We, as legislators, should not be in a position to decide who gets abortions and who does not.”
During the committee meeting, Republican Senator Tom Davis introduced nearly a dozen amendments that were not adopted by the committee, including a proposed amendment that added an exception for fatal fetal anomalies. .
As currently written, HB 5399 prohibits abortion at all stages of pregnancy, but does not preclude death of pregnant women, substantial risk of death in pregnant women due to physical Excluding only limited exceptions to prevent “defective injury”. It is a major bodily function in pregnant women. The bill lists several medical conditions deemed to pose such risks to pregnant women, including molar pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, severe pre-eclampsia and miscarriage.
A week ago, the House amended the near-total abortion ban, adding exceptions for cases of rape and incest up to 12 weeks after conception and creating reporting requirements. The amendment, which has been a major issue among Republicans, was adopted by voice vote in a hasty reconsideration of the original bill, which had just been defeated by the House earlier that night on the grounds that there were no exceptions. was done.
That amendment was then removed by a Senate committee on Tuesday.
Source: www.cnn.com
