In South Carolina, Republicans failed to pass nearly complete ban on abortion during an extended legislative session Thursday night, unable to agree on whether to include exceptions for rape and incest. In West Virginia, a recent special session on similar legislation deadlocked. At the same time, attempts to payment in advance strict ban at the national level in Congress they have simmered. After pushing for a national “heartbeat ban” on abortions this spring — which would have banned the procedure as soon as heart activity was detected, about six weeks into pregnancy — Republican lawmakers and some anti-abortion advocates have backed away from the idea. Some lawmakers are now pushing for 15 week ban. others have abandoned any kind of national abortion legislation. “We are not elected as kings or dictators. We were elected to serve the will of the people,” said West Virginia state Sen. Tom Tacubo (R), who declined to support a near-total ban without exceptions for rape and incest. “Even in the most rural and conservative parts of West Virginia, I still think the majority believe there should be exceptions for rape and incest.” 69 percent of Americans, including 56 percent of Republicans, said abortion should be legal when the pregnancy resulted from rape, according to a March Pew Research poll. The Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn the constitutional right to abortion immediately sparked strict abortion bans in states across the South and Midwest, cutting off access to abortion for 1 in 3 women nationwide. Even so, many anti-abortion advocates saw an opportunity to go further. In state legislatures, activists have teamed with conservative lawmakers to push for extreme restrictions, including bans without exceptions for rape and incest, and legislation that would prevent people from seeking abortion care across state lines. But lawmakers were forced to reckon with the growing public backlash. Last month, voters overwhelmingly rejected an anti-abortion amendment in Kansas that would have stripped abortion protections from the state constitution. And Democrats who support abortion rights won recent special elections in moderate districts, beating expectations. “They saw what happened in Kansas,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis who specializes in abortion. “You have people from certain parts of South Carolina who are embarrassed about it — and they have reason to be.” In South Carolina this week, an insemination ban with no exceptions for rape or incest victims had support from 24 of 30 Republican senators, including the party leadership, but a small group of Republicans spent hours Wednesday and Thursday trying to convince colleagues to soften the language of the bill. Ultimately, Republicans who had championed a near-total ban abandoned the more restrictive proposals because they couldn’t muster enough votes to pass them. “People are very divided,” said State Sen. Penry Gustafson (R). South Carolina Republicans are backing down on the push for a near-total abortion ban In the days leading up to Thursday’s vote, the senator said she was inundated with calls and emails from South Carolinians lambasting the bill from all sides. Gustafson, who did not support the ban without exceptions for rape or incest, said she had to balance the views of her deeply conservative constituency with those of residents in other parts of the state who would be affected by the bill, especially women. “You have to know your people and who you represent,” said Gustafson, who eventually sponsored a bill that largely mirrors the state’s six-week ban. “My vote directly reflects the will of my people.” South Carolina state Sen. Tom Davis (R), who opposed the near-total ban with no exceptions, said he expects abortion to be a major issue for voters in November. “We don’t just hear from people who feel passionately on the extremes … we hear from a lot of people who are somewhere in the middle,” Davis said. “Where it will go down remains to be seen at the polls.” While the near-total ban failed, South Carolina lawmakers were able to push through an amended bill that would severely limit access. That measure — a version of one already on the books but blocked by the courts — bans abortion after six weeks and limits rape and incest exceptions to the first trimester, requires a second doctor’s opinion in cases where a fetus is diagnosed with a fatal abnormality. and orders doctors who perform abortions in cases of rape or incest to send a fetal DNA sample to the police. The legislation moves to the state House, which could consider it as early as next week. A similar dynamic played out in late July in West Virginia, where Republican lawmakers introduced a near-total abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest as soon as they convened for a special session. A version of that bill was widely expected to pass until two doctors serving in the state Senate — Takubo and Sen. Michael Maroney (R) — pushed for an amendment that would have lifted criminal penalties for doctors. Others introduced an amendment to expand the bill’s exemptions. The West Virginia Legislature adjourned for the month of August after failing to agree on a version of the bill to move forward. Lawmakers have since been called back to Capitol Hill, where debate on the anti-abortion legislation will continue next week. On Capitol Hill, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) was scheming behind the scenes to introduce a “heartbeat” ban in the Senate after the Supreme Court decision, lending weight to one of the GOP’s most prominent female stars on legislation that would have ban the procedure nationwide before many people know she is pregnant. Although that bill has been drafted, there is no timetable for Ernst or any other senator to introduce it, according to several anti-abortion advocates close to the situation. Ernst did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), founder and chairman of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, said he has not had conversations with lawmakers about introducing a heartbeat-style bill on the floor since the Supreme Court ruling. Instead, some anti-abortion advocates hope that Republican lawmakers will rally around a 15-week ban that Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (RS.C.) is expected to introduce this fall, a proposal that has been condemned by many in the anti-abortion abortion movement because it would allow the vast majority of abortions to continue. Graham’s representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Some Republican lawmakers have expressed disinterest in even this less restrictive bill. Even before the anti-abortion amendment was resoundingly defeated in his home state, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told the Washington Post he wasn’t sure there was a future for any kind of national abortion ban. “I just don’t see the momentum at the federal level,” Marshall said in a July 25 interview, declining a request for a follow-up interview late last month. “I think the legislative priority should be in the states.” A nationwide ban would be extremely difficult to pass, requiring 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. Either proposal under discussion — a ban at either six weeks or 15 — would face resistance from nearly all Democrats except a handful of Republicans who support abortion rights. No party is likely to win in the midterm elections the number of seats necessary for an unnegotiable majority. Some Republicans have been reluctant to discuss the issue of a national abortion ban on the campaign trail. In Arizona, Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters removed any mention of his support for a “federal personhood law” from his website, legislation that would likely ban post-conception abortions nationwide. Masters’ website now says he would support a ban on abortions in the third trimester, around 27 weeks of pregnancy, which would affect an extremely small percentage of abortions performed across the country each year. At the state level, abortion rights advocates say the delays have provided an unexpected window for abortion access in some of the most conservative states — at least temporarily. When the West Virginia Legislature adjourned in late July without passing a ban, staff at the state’s only abortion clinic sat in the gallery and wept. “It meant we could see patients the following week,” said clinic manager Katie Quinonez, who had prepared to call every patient in the program to tell them they had to get their abortions somewhere else. The Women’s Health Center saw 78 patients for abortion care last month, according to Quinonez, with many coming from states like Kentucky and Ohio, where strict bans are in place. “We never expected to be a state that would accept abortion patients from states where abortion is illegal,” Quinonez said. “We expected to be one of those states.” Before the law changed, he added, “we’re focused on seeing as many patients as physically possible.”
