Anti-Choice Politicians in South Carolina Are Pushing Legislation that Would Devastate Women and Families
For Immediate Release: September 10, 2019
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Today, lawmakers in South Carolina are holding a rare summer hearing to try to fast-track H. 3020, an extreme bill that would ban almost all abortions in the state and disproportionately harm women and families of color. This effort is the latest in this year’s unprecedented wave of abortion bans and would follow in the footsteps of states like Georgia and Alabama, where politicians passed draconian bans on abortion that would target doctors and worsen maternal mortality.
Anti-choice legislators already rushed this bill through the state House of Representatives at the last minute this spring, and are now trying to fast-track it in the Senate with today’s hearing in the Senate Medical Affairs subcommittee. NARAL Pro-Choice Georgia Director Laura Simmons plans to testify against the bill before the subcommittee alongside other reproductive freedom and justice activists and leaders.
“South Carolina women and their families don’t deserve to pay the price for a political agenda,” said Simmons. “If the South Carolina Senate passes this bill, they are asking the women and doctors of South Carolina to put their lives and health on the line to further an extreme ideological agenda, when what they really need is compassion. We will never know what every woman is facing, the circumstances she’s in, or be able to walk in her shoes. We can and must learn from what we have seen happen when these kinds of laws are implemented. Doctors fear that practicing and administering care to their patients will land them in jail, and women suffer the consequences.”
“At a time when reproductive freedom is under attack across the country, politicians in South Carolina are laying bare the disturbing truth that they think politicians have the right to interfere in people’s most personal decisions about pregnancy,” said NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue. “NARAL stands with the coalition in South Carolina working to fend off these relentless attacks and stand with South Carolina women and families as we fight for fundamental freedoms.”
In 2019, anti-choice politicians have pushed through an unprecedented number of extreme bans on abortion. So far this year, Louisiana, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, and Alabama have all passed and signed into law unconstitutional and dangerous laws that would either severely restrict abortion or ban it outright. These efforts to gut or overturn Roe v. Wade are out-of-step with overwhelming majorities of Americans, with public support for Roe at an all-time high.
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NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates and chapters are dedicated to protecting and expanding reproductive freedom for all. For more than 50 years, NARAL has worked to guarantee that every woman has the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion. Since 1969, NARAL has made history, grown to over 2 million members, and met the moments that have defined this fight with action, power and freedom. In recognition of its work defending our constitutional right to choose, Fortune Magazine described NARAL as “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America.”