The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled this week to uphold the state’s fetal heartbeat law, allowing the state to continue the ban on abortions starting at around six weeks of gestation.
The 5-0 decision, issued on Wednesday, came in response to a challenge from Planned Parenthood to the state law. The justices ruled that the medical language in the 2023 law was vague but noted that both opponents and supporters of the measure believe that it bans abortions after six weeks.
The law says abortions cannot be performed after an ultrasound can detect “cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac,” and that “cardiac activity begins at a biologically identifiable moment in time, normally when the fetal heart is formed in the gestational sac.”…