COLUMBIA, S.C. (WBTW) — The South Carolina Supreme Court has denied an appeal by Attorney General Alan Wilson to reconsider its ruling that the state’s fetal heartbeat law was unconstitutional.
The court ruled 3-2 in early January that the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act — which would have banned all abortions after about six weeks — violated the constitution’s right to privacy.
“As we’ve said previously, we respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision,” Wilson said in a statement issued Wednesday morning. “This issue is now in the legislature’s hands.”
The court’s initial ruling came nearly two years after McMaster signed the measure into law. The ban, which included exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest or pregnancies that endangered the patient’s life, drew lawsuits almost immediately.
During his State of the State speech at the end of January, McMaster said the court determined that the law “violated a constitutional provision that was proposed and adopted before Roe v. Wade, at a time when nearly all abortions were illegal in South Carolina.”
Currently, South Carolina bars most abortions at 20 weeks.
