South Carolina So 'Pro-Life' It's Gonna Murderize Everyone Who So Much As Thinks About Having An Abortion

This was always where they were going.

South Carolina — the first state to formally declare, "Screw you, we're keeping our slaves!" — continues its distinguished civil rights history with new legislation that would sentence anyone who receives an abortion with the death penalty, which is fatal.

Republican state Rep. Rob Harris authored the bill, the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023, which would amend the state's laws and redefine "person" to include a fertilized egg at the point of conception. Republicans recoil at considering trans women women but are fully on board with redefining "person" to include a clump of non-sentient cells that live inside another person's body. Twenty-one other ghouls have co-sponsored this abomination.

The proposed law would grant zygotes "equal protection under the homicide laws of the state," at least until they mature into a Black person who interacts with the police or an antsy white guy with a gun. Methods of execution in the state include lethal injection, and since 2021, electrocution, and firing squad upon request. That's truly barbaric, but you kick it up a notch when the state executes people because of what they do to their own bodies.

PREVIOUSLY:  Anti-Choice Texans Want To Murder To Death Any Woman Who Commits Abortion 

Conservative pundit Amanda Carpenter commented on South Carolina's proposed law, "You have to call this something different than pro-life. What?"

None

— (@)  

However, this is somewhat disingenuous. South Carolina's law is the logical extension of the anti-abortion argument. Is the fetus legally a person or not? If not, then the state has no business interfering in a citizen's personal health decisions. If so, there are laws against killing people, unless you're a cop and everyone knows you have a really tough job.

 Last year on "The View," during a discussion aboutTexas's six-week abortion ban, she said, "Listen, I'm pro-life. I believe that when you look at an ultrasound and you see a heartbeat, that is a life." No, those are "amplified electrical impulses" not a fully developed heart. It's only the simulacrum of life. She should understand the difference from having worked on Ted Cruz's presidential campaign. 

You might ask, "But Alex Murdaugh is from South Carolina and was only sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife and the child who fully functioned outside of her body." That's true, but the prosecutors chose not to pursue the death penalty. That sort of inconsistency is one of many reasons death penalty opponents think capital punishment is unjust. There's also the troubling reality that it's probably easier for prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone had an abortion.

 Dr. Mia Brett has argued that post- Dobbs , a person arrested for having an abortion should be able to claim self-defense. It's a compelling point, especially considering that gun-happy South Carolina's "stand your ground" laws have expanded Castle Doctrine and removed any "duty to retreat." The duty to carry a pregnancy to term, with no small health risk, is certainly more burdensome than simply walking away from a fight.

The proposed bill does not include a rape or incest exception ... nor should it, because the zygote did not choose how it was conceived. (So that would contradict any basis for a personhood law.) These exceptions have always revealed the anti-abortionist's hand — this is about punishing women for sex, not about protecting human life. The exceptions were also intended to keep suburban white women voting for anti-abortion Republican candidates. It's arguably how Republicans were able to successfully purge most pro-choice members from their party.

Republican House Rep. Nancy Mace from South Carolina expressed her alarm last week: “To see this debate go to the dark places, the dark edges, where it has gone on both sides of the aisle, has been deeply disturbing to me as a woman, as a female legislator, as a mom, and as a victim of rape."

“I was raped as a teenager at the age of 16," she said. "This debate ought to be a bipartisan debate where we balance the rights of women and we balance the right to life. But we aren’t having that conversation here in DC. We aren’t having that conversation at home. We aren’t having that conversation with fellow state lawmakers.”

Lady, this is your Supreme Court and radical rightwing government. You bought this, and those fuckers broke it. They are pushing this into the "dark places, the dark edges." Bottom line: Forcing anyone to continue a pregnancy against their will under any circumstance is monstrous.

 In the section of Mace's website perversely labeled "women's rights," she's claimed that "the radical view of abortions for any reason up until birth is barbaric and not supported by the vast majority of Americans. Some say, that doesn’t ever happen. But the fact is, up to 10,000 late term abortions happen every year." These abortions are not performed for the EVILUZ but because of serious, often heart-breaking complications. Once again, Mace spreads easily debunked misinformation to promote a self-serving "both sides" narrative.

The best way to protect the victims of rape from this obscene state overreach is to keep abortion legal, as it existed for almost 50 years under Roe v. Wade . Smiling fake moderates like Mace knew what would happen when their buddies up and down the ticket got elected. They can't play ignorant now.

 I[ndependent ]

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