SCCL Responds to Planned Parenthood’s Latest Attack on Fetal Heartbeat Law

Planned Parenthood has filed yet another court challenge to the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act in the South Carolina state court, according to the Associated Press. The AP noted that under the current law, Planned Parenthood complains that ‘around 91 percent’ of its clients seeking abortions at Planned Parenthood facilities in Columbia and Charleston ‘have been denied abortion in the roughly three weeks’ since the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the Fetal Heartbeat law is constitutional. South Carolina Citizens for Life strongly supports the Fetal Heartbeat Act currently in place. SCCL Executive Director Holly Gatling made the following statement in response to Planned Parenthood’s latest litigation: ‘Planned Parenthood is in the business of killing unborn children and charging money for it. The complaint filed today basically says the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act is costing the industry a lot of business. How sad and pathetic that these people who have already been born and are living their lives think nascent members of human family are worthless individuals subject to extermination.’ The Fetal Heartbeat Act protects the unborn once a heartbeat can be detected, which is usually before the sixth week of pregnancy. The General Assembly defined a fetal heartbeat as ‘cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac.’ According to the AP article, Planned Parenthood argues the ‘major components of what typically ultimately becomes the heart…do not typically form before nine weeks of pregnancy.’ In other words, Planned Parenthood is asking the court to keep abortion legal well after the fetal heartbeat can be detected. For a scientific and ethical description of the human heart, see the article by South Carolina pro-life physician Peter Bleyer, M.D., reprinted in the May 17, 2023 SCCL email broadcast.