South Carolina Republicans Set To Reintroduce Bill Allowing Death Penalty For Abortions | EUROtoday

A handful of South Carolina Republicans plan to reintroduce a invoice that may outline abortion as murder — against the law punishable by demise underneath state legislation.

State Rep. Rob Harris (R) pre-filed the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act earlier this month, and it will likely be launched within the judiciary committee when the legislative session begins in January. The proposed invoice seeks to amend the state’s legal code to widen the definition of “person” to incorporate “an unborn child at any stage of development.”

The invoice would outline abortion, with few exceptions, as equal to killing an individual underneath the legal code. South Carolina at the moment has a six-week abortion ban in impact. If handed, this invoice would successfully enact a complete abortion ban as a result of it considers all abortion, beginning “from the moment of fertilization,” to be murder.

South Carolina’s legal code carries a compulsory minimal sentence of 30 years in jail for murder. Under particular circumstances — together with when a sufferer is underneath 11 years previous — the minimal sentence will be life in jail or the demise penalty. Taken collectively, this might imply anybody aborting a being pregnant within the state would face life in jail or execution.

The proposal does embody some exceptions for “spontaneous” miscarriage and life-saving procedures, however all too typically some of these exceptions are actual in title solely.

Harris initially launched the identical invoice in 2023, and the concept that lawmakers would think about using capital punishment on individuals who get abortions sparked nationwide outrage. Several Republicans who co-sponsored that invoice quietly eliminated their names after public outcry. The 2023 model died shortly after it was launched within the state House.

Harris didn’t reply to HuffPost’s request for remark this week, however defended the invoice in 2023 to HuffPost reporter Lydia O’Connor.

“My bill does not single out women,” Harris mentioned on the time. “It prohibits everyone from committing murder. It provides the same due process that everyone enjoys under our current laws.”

It’s not possible that the invoice will go anyplace this time round. The present model has six co-sponsors, together with Harris, all of whom are white males and members of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, a part of the extra excessive sector of the Republican Party.

“I think that the majority of people, even the most strident Republicans, would say the death penalty bill is not where we want to go with abortion,” Vicki Ringer, the director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, advised HuffPost.

Support for prosecuting abortion sufferers is a fringe place, even inside the anti-abortion motion, and most giant teams have distanced themselves from the concept. Most anti-abortion legal guidelines embody carve-outs to make sure that sufferers aren’t criminalized for his or her being pregnant outcomes. Still, many have been arrested regardless of these legal guidelines.

Although Ringer believes the invoice can be useless on arrival, she hopes folks won’t dismiss how scary it’s that some lawmakers are comfy introducing laws like this.

“I don’t know who is getting equal protection, but it appears in South Carolina that only fetuses and embryos get equal protection,” she mentioned. “Women and trans people do not.”