South Carolina Republicans Set To Reintroduce Bill Allowing Death Penalty For Abortions

A handful of South Carolina Republicans plan to reintroduce a bill that would define abortion as homicide — a crime punishable by death under state law.

State Rep. Rob Harris (R) pre-filed the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act earlier this month, and it will be introduced in the judiciary committee when the legislative session begins in January. The proposed bill seeks to amend the state’s criminal code to widen the definition of “person” to include “an unborn child at any stage of development.”

The bill would define abortion, with few exceptions, as equivalent to killing a person under the criminal code. South Carolina currently has a six-week abortion ban in effect. If passed, this bill would effectively enact a total abortion ban because it considers all abortion, starting “from the moment of fertilization,” to be homicide.

South Carolina’s criminal code carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison for homicide. Under special circumstances — including when a victim is under 11 years old — the minimum sentence can be life in prison or the death penalty. Taken together, this could mean anyone aborting a pregnancy in the state would face life in prison or execution.

The proposal does include some exceptions for “spontaneous” miscarriage and life-saving procedures, but all too often these types of exceptions are real in name only.

Harris originally introduced the same bill in 2023, and the idea that lawmakers would consider using capital punishment on people who get abortions sparked national outrage. Several Republicans who co-sponsored that bill quietly removed their names after public outcry. The 2023 version died shortly after it was introduced in the state House.

Harris did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment this week, but defended the bill in 2023 to HuffPost reporter Lydia O’Connor.

“My bill does not single out women,” Harris said at the time. “It prohibits everyone from committing murder. It provides the same due process that everyone enjoys under our current laws.”

It’s very unlikely that the bill will go anywhere this time around. The current version has six co-sponsors, including Harris, all of whom are white men and members of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, part of the more extreme sector of the Republican Party.

“I think that the majority of people, even the most strident Republicans, would say the death penalty bill is not where we want to go with abortion,” Vicki Ringer, the director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, told HuffPost.

Support for prosecuting abortion patients is a fringe position, even within the anti-abortion movement, and most large groups have distanced themselves from the idea. Most anti-abortion laws include carve-outs to ensure that patients aren’t criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes. Still, many have been arrested despite these laws.

Although Ringer believes the bill will be dead on arrival, she hopes people will not dismiss how frightening it is that some lawmakers are comfortable introducing legislation like this.

“I don’t know who is getting equal protection, but it appears in South Carolina that only fetuses and embryos get equal protection,” she said. “Women and trans people do not.”