The South Carolina state legislature removed rape and incest exceptions to a bill approved Tuesday in an apparent attempt by Democrats in the state to sabotage the pro-life legislation.
Exceptions for rape and incest up to the 12th week of pregnancy were added to the bill after it initially failed to garner adequate support in the legislature Tuesday. The bill passed by a vote of 67-38.
“We think by highlighting the fact a bunch of extreme, Republican men are trying to control women’s decisions in South Carolina — they need to own that. The governor needs to own that,” Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto told The Associated Press (AP). (RELATED: Veterans Affairs Hospitals To Begin Providing Abortion Services For First Time Ever)
Republicans accused Democrats of playing politics with the tenuous issue.
“It looks like when they had the chance to help women, they didn’t,” Republican Sen. Michael Gambrel said.
A group of South Carolina senators voted today, to remove exceptions for rape and incest from their proposed abortion ban.
The 7-3 vote in the Senate Medical Affairs Committee involved all republican men.
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In early August, several South Carolina Republicans balked at voting in a comprehensive ban on abortion in the state. State Sen. Tom Davis, one of the 17 members on the Senate Medical Affairs Committee, told The AP that both a ban on all abortions and permitting abortion, in any case, were too extreme.
Republican state Sen. Sandy Senn said the Kansas abortion referendum, in which voters in the state struck down an abortion ban, meant that the GOP should be careful with large scale abortion bans.
“The Kansas vote affirms what most of us know,” Senn said. “It’s the people in my party, most all of them men, yelling the loudest that women should have zero choice from the moment of conception.”
Most abortions are banned in 12 states, according to the New York Times. Ohio and Georgia have abortions banned at six weeks, and North Carolina, Florida and Utah have abortions banned at at least 15 weeks.