Planned Parenthood’s third attempt to expand its South Carolina customer base via three extra weeks to buy an abortion failed this week. The state Supreme Court ruled South Carolina can keep its heartbeat law as it currently stands, protecting babies from abortion after the earliest detectable heartbeat — usually around six weeks of pregnancy.
The heartbeat law itself does not specify how many weeks into pregnancy an abortion is allowed in relation to the heartbeat. It simply reads, “Abortions may not be performed in this state after a fetal heartbeat has been detected,” with certain exceptions.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic went to court to argue the heartbeat law’s language is not clear. The abortion giant interprets it to mean abortion should be allowed up to nine weeks of pregnancy across the board because by that time, all four chambers of the heart are formed.
The court said it considered the single question, “at what point in a woman’s pregnancy does a ‘fetal heartbeat’ occur,” as it is defined in the Heartbeat Law.
The court relied on this definition of fetal heartbeat: “Cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac,” and in its decision, it agreed the language is not precise.
Ultimately, because Planned Parenthood has been to court over this matter so often, its own words sank its case.
“When Planned Parenthood sought the initial injunction in federal district court in 2021, Planned Parenthood itself referred to the 2021 [Heartbeat] Act in its motion to the court as a ‘Six-Week Ban,’” the decision said. The decision went on to describe many times Planned Parenthood called the current law a “six week ban.”
“In fact, Planned Parenthood — which now contends a ‘fetal heartbeat’ does not occur under the 2023 Act until after nine weeks of pregnancy—has not cited to us even one instance in which it, the State, or a Justice of this Court referred to the identical 2021 definition of ‘fetal heartbeat’ as anything other than the point in time that marks an approximately six-week ban,” the decision reads.
According to footnotes in the decision, Planned Parenthood used the phrase “Six-Week Ban” more than 300 times in its various filings, before filing the case arguing for nine weeks of abortion access.
The decision also notes that the South Carolina General Assembly’s intent in the heartbeat law comes from a finding that a “fetal heartbeat is a key medical predictor that an unborn child will reach live birth.”
The court also looked at heartbeat laws in other states that are “universally understood to ban abortions at approximately six weeks of pregnancy.”
“Planned Parenthood has failed in attempting to rewrite the science of human development to further their agenda for more abortions and more profit,” SBA Pro-Life America Political Director Caitlin Connors said in a statement. “The level of science denial from this abortion giant that receives $800 million in taxpayer funding annually should astound South Carolinians who overwhelmingly re-elected Gov. Henry McMaster and state Republicans after they enacted the heartbeat law. We celebrate that the justices saw through Planned Parenthood’s charade and upheld the law that protects 4,829 lives annually.”
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
