{"id":10703,"date":"2026-01-12T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=10703"},"modified":"2026-01-12T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T10:00:00","slug":"abortion-as-homicide-debate-in-south-carolina-exposes-gop-rift-as-states-weigh-new-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=10703","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Abortion as Homicide\u2019 Debate in South Carolina Exposes GOP Rift as States Weigh New Restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

COLUMBIA, S.C. \u2014 When a trio of Republican state lawmakers introduced a bill last year that would subject women who obtain abortions to decades in prison, some reproductive rights advocates feared South Carolina might pass the \u201cmost extreme<\/a>\u201d abortion ban in the United States.<\/p>\n

Now, though, it seems unlikely to become state law. In November, a vote to advance the bill<\/a> beyond a legislative subcommittee failed. Four out of six Republicans on the Senate Medical Affairs Committee subpanel refused to vote on the measure.<\/p>\n

Republican state Sen. Jeff Zell said during a November subcommittee hearing that he wanted to help \u201cmove this pro-life football down the field and to save as many babies as we can.\u201d Still, he could not support the bill as written.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I am interested in is speaking on behalf of the South Carolinian,\u201d he said, \u201cand they\u2019re not interested in this bill right now or this issue right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

While that bill stalled, it signals that abortion will continue to loom large during 2026 legislative sessions. More than three years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade<\/em>, measures related to abortion have already been prefiled in several states, including Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, and Virginia.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the South Carolina bill also exposed a rift among Republicans. Some GOP lawmakers are eager to appeal to their most conservative supporters by pursuing more restrictive abortion laws, despite the lack of support for such measures among most voters.<\/p>\n

Until recently, the idea of charging women who obtain abortions with a crime was considered \u201cpolitically toxic,\u201d said Steven Greene, a political science professor at North Carolina State University.<\/p>\n

Yet at least 15 states<\/a> introduced \u201cabortion as homicide\u201d bills during 2024-2025 legislative sessions, many of which included the death penalty as a potential sentence, according to Dana Sussman, senior vice president of Pregnancy Justice, an organization that tracks the criminalization of pregnancy outcomes.<\/p>\n

Even though none of those bills was signed into law, Sussman called this \u201ca hugely alarming trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fear is that one of these will end up passing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Less than a month after the bill stalled in South Carolina, another bill<\/a> \u2014 which would create criminal penalties for \u201ccoercion to obtain an abortion\u201d \u2014 was prefiled ahead of the Jan. 13 start of the state\u2019s legislative session.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue is not going away. It\u2019s a moral issue,\u201d said state Sen. Richard Cash, who introduced the abortion bill that stalled in the subcommittee. \u201cHow far we can go, and what successes we can have, remain to be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u2018Wrongful Death\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Florida law already bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. But a Republican lawmaker introduced a bill in October proposing civil liability<\/a> for the \u201cwrongful death\u201d of a fetus. If enacted, the measure will allow parents to sue for the death of an unborn child, making them eligible for compensation, including damages for mental pain and suffering.<\/p>\n

The bill says neither the mother nor a medical provider giving \u201clawful\u201d care could be sued. But anyone else deemed to have acted with \u201cnegligence,\u201d including someone who helps procure abortion-inducing pills or a doctor who performs an abortion after six weeks, could be sued by one of the parents.<\/p>\n

In Missouri, a constitutional amendment to legalize abortion passed in 2024 with 51.6% of the vote. In 2026, state lawmakers are asking voters to repeal the amendment they just passed. A new proposed amendment would effectively reinstate the state\u2019s ban on most abortions, with new exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and medical emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a middle-of-the-road, common sense proposal that most Missourians will agree with,\u201d said Ed Lewis<\/a>, a Republican state representative who sponsored the legislation<\/a> to put the measure on the ballot.<\/p>\n

Lewis said the 2024 amendment went too far in allowing a legal basis to challenge<\/a> all of Missouri\u2019s abortion restrictions, sometimes called \u201ctargeted regulation of abortion providers,\u201d or TRAP, laws. Even before Missouri\u2019s outright ban, the number of abortions recorded in the state had dropped from 5,772 in 2011<\/a> to 150 in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lewis backed another proposed constitutional amendment that will appear on the 2026 ballot. That measure would make it harder for Missourians to amend the state constitution, by requiring any amendment to receive a majority of votes in each congressional district.<\/p>\n

One analysis suggested as few as 5% of voters could defeat<\/a> any ballot measure under the proposal. Lewis dismissed the analysis as a \u201cDemocratic talking point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Gerrymandered\u2019 Districts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Republican lawmakers aren\u2019t necessarily aiming to pass abortion laws that appeal to the broadest swath of voters in their states.<\/p>\n

Polling conducted ahead of Missouri\u2019s vote in 2024 showed 52% of the state\u2019s likely voters supported the constitutional amendment to protect access to abortion, a narrow majority that was consistent with the final vote.<\/p>\n

In Texas, state law offers no exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest, even though a 2025 survey found 83% of Texans believe the procedure should be legal under those conditions.<\/p>\n

In South Carolina, a 2024 poll found only 31% of respondents supported the state\u2019s existing six-week abortion ban, which prohibits the procedure in most cases after fetal cardiac activity can be detected.<\/p>\n

But Republicans hold supermajorities in the South Carolina General Assembly, and some continue to push for a near-total abortion ban even though such a law would probably be broadly unpopular. That\u2019s because district lines have been drawn in such a way that politicians are more likely to be ousted by a more conservative member of their own party in a primary than defeated by a Democrat in a general election, said Scott Huffmon, director of the Center for Public Opinion & Policy Research at Winthrop University.<\/p>\n

The South Carolina legislature is \u201cso gerrymandered that more than half of the seats in both chambers were uncontested in the last general election. Whoever wins the primary wins the seat,\u201d Huffmon said. \u201cThe best way to win the primary \u2014 or, better yet, prevent a primary challenge at all \u2014 is to run to the far right and embrace the policies of the most conservative people in the district.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what some proposals, including the \u201cabortion as homicide\u201d bills, reflect, said Greene, the North Carolina State professor. Lawmakers could vote for such a measure and suffer \u201cvery minimal, if any,\u201d political backlash, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the politicians passing these laws are more concerned with making the base happy than with actually dramatically reducing the number of abortions that take place within their jurisdiction,\u201d Greene said.<\/p>\n

Yet the number of abortions performed in South Carolina has dropped dramatically \u2014 by 63% from 2023 to 2024, when the state enacted the existing ban, according to data published by the state\u2019s Department of Public Health.<\/p>\n

Kimya Forouzan, a policy adviser with the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion legislation throughout the country and advocates for reproductive rights, said South Carolina\u2019s attempt to pass \u201cthe most extreme bill that we have seen\u201d is \u201cpart of a pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the push for anti-abortion legislation exists throughout the country,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are a lot of battles that are brewing.\u201d<\/p>\n

KFF Health News correspondent Daniel Chang and Southern bureau chief Sabriya Rice contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

USE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n

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COLUMBIA, S.C. \u2014 When a trio of Republican state lawmakers introduced a bill last year that would subject women who obtain abortions to decades in prison, some reproductive rights advocates feared South Carolina might pass the \u201cmost extreme\u201d abortion ban in the United States. Now, though, it seems unlikely to become state law. In November,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}