Dem
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GOP
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Will wonders never cease? The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that the right to privacy guaranteed by the state Constitution means that the state's new law banning abortions after 6 weeks is unconstitutional. With the new law scrapped, the old law, which allows abortions up to 20 weeks, takes effect starting immediately. Understanding why a 6-week ban is an invasion of a woman's privacy but a 20-week ban is not an invasion of a woman's privacy, is something that you have to go to law school and spend years on the bench to understand. It's not for laymen or laywomen to fathom.
The relevant portion of the state Constitution states that the people have the right:
...to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures and unreasonable invasions of privacy shall not be violated.
Chief Justice Donald Beatty wrote: "This fundamental, constitutional mandate transcends politics and opinion." Rep. John McCravy (R) didn't like that. He said: "It's certainly disappointing. It infringes on the legislature's job of making the laws." He has a point there. Constitutions often tell legislatures what laws they can and cannot pass. For example, the South Carolina legislature cannot pass a law bringing slavery back, even if a two-thirds majority want to do so.
Meanwhile, the legislature is working on a new bill that will ban abortions starting at the moment of conception. A similar ban came up last summer and was passed by the state House and killed in the state Senate. And that was before the state Supreme Court ruling. It seems unlikely that a bill even stricter than the one the Court threw out would have much chance.
The South Carolina Supreme Court is the first one to rule since Dobbs on whether anti-abortion laws violate the state Constitution. However, other states have similar provisions in their Constitutions. Similar challenges to anti-abortion laws are now pending in Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Iowa, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming."
One thing the state legislators could do is change their constitutions to state that the right to privacy does not preclude the legislature passing laws regulating abortion. Then it would go, in most cases, to a vote of the people. Just like in Kansas last summer. Only that didn't work out so well for the anti-abortion forces. (V)