South Carolina Woman Files Lawsuit Against State’s Six-Week Abortion Ban

By Brendan Pierson

A woman from South Carolina, alongside Planned Parenthood, has initiated a lawsuit requesting that a court interpret the state’s abortion ban as applicable after approximately nine weeks of pregnancy rather than the currently stipulated six weeks. The plaintiffs argue that the legislation’s wording, which references fetal “heartbeat,” is unclear.

In her legal action, plaintiff Taylor Shelton contends that the law’s phrasing regarding the prohibition of abortion after “cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart,” lacks clarity. It could be interpreted in one of two ways: either as the first detectable electrical activity, which is around six weeks, or as occurring after the heart’s chambers are formed, which happens after nine weeks of gestation.

South Carolina enacted this law in August 2023, joining a number of states that have implemented similar “heartbeat” legislation following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that permitted states to impose abortion bans. Shelton’s lawsuit marks what appears to be the first challenge targeting such a law based on its fetal heartbeat definition.

In their complaint filed against South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and the state’s Board of Medical Examiners, Shelton and Planned Parenthood are seeking a ruling from a Richland County court that would clarify the law’s applicability to a gestational period of about nine weeks. They argue that South Carolina law necessitates that the court resolve the ambiguity in a manner that favors the plaintiffs.

Shelton expressed that due to the prevailing interpretation among doctors that the law pertains to six weeks, she was unable to obtain an abortion for her unwanted pregnancy in time and had to travel to neighboring North Carolina, where abortion is permitted until 12 weeks.

“The entire experience left me angry and quite frankly, traumatized,” Shelton stated. “I want everyone to understand the impact South Carolina’s abortion restrictions and unfair treatment are having on real people, and I hope my story illustrates how punitive and cruel these abortion bans truly are.”

Robert Kittle, a spokesperson for Wilson, stated that they have robustly defended the law in the past and will continue to do so.

South Carolina Chief Justice Donald Beatty, the only Democrat on the state’s highest court, noted in his dissent from the court’s August ruling, which upheld the ban, that the definition of fetal heartbeat was ambiguous. The majority ruling did not address this specific concern.