COLUMBIA, SC (WSPA) — According to court documents, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has responded to a lawsuit filed in state court challenging South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban.
The law, also known as the ‘South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act’, bans most abortions after six weeks into a pregnancy.
This lawsuit was filed by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Greenville Women’s Clinic and two physicians, less than a month after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion.
In the challenge, abortion providers are asking a state trial court to block the law on the grounds that it violates South Carolinians’ constitutional rights to privacy and equal protection.
In their response, Attorney General Wilson and others called the claims ‘novel—and meritless’. They wrote, “Plaintiffs’ assertion is completely unfounded and is unsupported by the South Carolina Constitution or binding case law.”
According to the lawsuit, plaintiffs are seeking a temporary restraining order that would prevent enforcement of the ban and immediately allow abortion providers in South Carolina to resume abortion services after six weeks of pregnancy.
Wilson and others are asking a judge to deny this emergency request.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic says there is a hearing scheduled for next Tuesday at 10 a.m.
You can read the Attorney General’s full response below:
