HARSH

All-Male South Carolina Supreme Court Upholds Six-Week Abortion Ban

The 4-1 ruling is a turnaround from the court’s January decision that struck down a similar ban.

The South Carolina Supreme Court—which is now comprised of all men—on Wednesday upheld the state’s six-week abortion ban. The new ban, set to take effect immediately, will effectively outlaw abortion procedures after about six weeks of pregnancy. In the 4-1 ruling, the court did a 180 on its own decision from January that struck down a similar ban passed by the Republican legislature in 2021. Justice John Kittredge recognized that the new ban will infringe on “a woman’s right of privacy and bodily autonomy,” but that this time, that interest doesn’t outweigh “the interest of the unborn child to live.” “As a Court, unless we can say that the balance struck by the Legislature was unreasonable as a matter of law, we must uphold the Act,” Kittredge wrote in the ruling.