South Carolina House passes abortion ban after GOP division on rape and incest exception
That tension was evident Tuesday, as Republican leaders struggled at times to keep their lawmakers in line. Earlier in the day, House members — led by the most conservative members of the GOP — rejected a rape and incest exception.A frustrated Republican Rep. Nathan Ballentine took to the lectern Tuesday to persuade colleagues to support an abortion ban, even if it included exceptions.
As the House prepared to vote on the near-total abortion ban, which included only one exception, for the life of the mother, Republicans called an unexpected hour-long recess. Democrats decried the move as an unprecedented delay meant to twist the arm of holdouts.“And all I can say is I’m so very glad to be part of a caucus where your arm is not twisted to do something that goes against your core," said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House.
“I just don’t know how you look your neighbors in the face, your daughters, and you tell them, ‘if you’re 9-years-old, you’re 11-years-old and you’ve been raped, you don’t have an option to take care of that,’ ” said Republican Rep. Micah Caskey as he urged House members to adopt the amendment. The tensions highlighted by Tuesday’s vote were previewed two weeks earlier, when Republican Rep. Neal Collins expressed regret for supporting the state’s six-week abortion ban in 2021, which took effect earlier this year before a state courtSouth Carolina state Rep. Neal Collins on Aug. 16 expressed regret for supporting an abortion ban during a committee hearing in Columbia, S.C.
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