A South Carolina judge Friday stopped a new state law banning abortions after 6 weeks until the state supreme court can review it. Gov. Henry McMaster (pictured, 2017) said he hopes the Supreme Court will take up the matter right away. File Photo by Stephen B. Morton/EPA-EFE
May 26 (UPI) — A South Carolina Circuit Court Judge has paused the state’s new six-week abortion ban until it is reviewed by the state’s high court.
Judge Clifton Newman’s ruling came just a day after South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill, passed by the GOP-controlled legislature, into law.
He found the new law similar enough to the one earlier struck down by South Carolina’s supreme court, saying from the bench, “The status quo should be maintained.”
Gov. McMaster wrote on Twitter, “We will continue fighting to protect the lives of the unborn in South Carolina and the constitutional law that protects them. I hope that the Supreme Court will take this matter up without delay.”
The state’s supreme court struck down an earlier version of the six-week abortion ban in January, ruling that one unconstitutional.
The new law drastically changed the existing 22-week period in which women could seek legal abortions.
The new abortion ban headed for review to the state Supreme Court threatens doctors with up to two years in prison and $10,000 in fines for violating it.
It makes exceptions for rape, incest and threats to the mother’s life.
The abortion battle in South Carolina comes as seventeen states have put abortion bans as early as 20 weeks into place.
North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature overrode Gov. Roy Cooper‘s veto of a 12-week abortion ban May 17.
Republicans are using the control they have in state legislatures to push abortion bans into place since Roe versus Wade federal abortion rights were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision.
