More than 12O people, many carrying signs that simply read “recede,” gathered at the Statehouse in Columbia on Oct. 18 to encourage the Senate to pass the House version of the Human Life Protection Act (H5399). Since late August, the Senate and House have been passing H5399 back and forth, with neither chamber willing to compromise enough to pass the bill on to the Governor. The drama has played out in front of the backdrop of the state Supreme Court that will soon decide whether or not the language of the 2021 Fetal Heartbeat Bill meets the standard set by the South Carolina Constitution.
The bill fell well short of the number of votes needed for the Senate to recede (to agree to abandon its version of H5399 and pass the original House version), and instead, voted overwhelmingly (38 to 6) to insist on the Senate version of H5399. Ten Republicans joined all of the Democrats in voting against the motion to recede, resulting in the motion failing 17 to 26. All of the optimism this summer for a strong bill to protect life that sprang from the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has now been reduced to a final chance for a compromise bill to emerge from a Senate/House Conference Committee.
When the House and Senate can’t agree on a bill, both chambers choose three members to serve on a Conference Committee to see if a compromise can be reached. The Senate conferees are Senate Majority Leader Sen. Shane Massey (R-Edgefield), Sen. Richard Cash (R-Anderson) and Sen. Margie Bright Matthews (D-Colleton). The House conferees are House Family Caucus Leader, Rep. John McCravy (R-Greenwood), House Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Tommy Pope (R-York) and Rep. Elizabeth “Spencer” Wetmore (D-Charleston). The Conference Committee must put together a bill using only the language provided in the House and Senate versions. Then the bill must be approved by both the House and the Senate before proceeding to the Governor.
The clock is running. The sine die resolution, allowing the Legislature to convene for a specific purpose outside of its normal session, will expire Nov. 13. If no bill passes before that date, babies in the womb in South Carolina will continue to be aborted, at least until the Legislature convenes in January for the 2023 session. According to DHEC, since the Heartbeat Bill was temporarily enjoined by the state Supreme Court, an average of 115 babies are being aborted every week in South Carolina. Many of those seeking an abortion are coming from Georgia, where that state’s six-week abortion ban remains in place.
Merging the House and Senate versions of H5399 will not be an easy task. The House version protects life beginning at conception, with the exception of rape, incest, or the life of the mother. The Senate version is a rewording of the 2021 Heartbeat Bill, with exceptions for life of the mother, rape, incest, and fatal fetal anomaly (verified by two doctors). The Senate version also bans all state funding of Planned Parenthood and prohibits state employees from using their state-provided health insurance to pay for an abortion.
Republican Senators who voted against the motion to recede insist the language of the original House version of H5399 would not pass state constitutional muster. Defenders of the motion to recede insist replacing the Heartbeat Bill with H5399 would automatically correct the constitutionally questionable language. The question is now moot, since the fate of the bill rests on the Conference Committee’s ability to forge a compromise.
Please pray that the final outcome will be a bill that protects life in the womb from the moment of conception. Pray that our South Carolina Supreme Court will affirm the constitutionality of the Heartbeat Bill. We must not miss this historic opportunity to protect life in South Carolina.