Seven South Carolina state representatives prefiled a bill in December that aims to tighten regulations on abortion. The existing state law requires that women have an ultrasound and wait one hour after discussing the details of the abortion procedure prior to the abortion.
According to WCNC, the current bill would extend the waiting period from 1 hour to 24 hours and require all doctors to inform women of the option to view an ultrasound prior to the procedure, as well as require doctors to provide women with a list of places that offer free ultrasounds. The law’s authors originally planning that viewing an ultrasound would be mandatory, reported The State.
South Carolina state Representative Todd Rutherford told The State, “This is just another attempt by Republicans to chink away at women’s rights in this state. We have a Senate that has no women and a House with very few women and we want to tell a woman what to do with her body.”
In November, a temporary injunction prevented a similar anti-abortion law from going into effect in Oklahoma. This law would have required doctors to perform an ultrasound and provide women with a detailed description of their fetus an hour prior to undergoing an abortion procedure, according to The Edmond Sun.
