South Carolina Republicans float death penalty for women who get abortions

The would-be law does provide exceptions for women who receive abortions under threat of death or serious personal injury.
Protesters hold placards during the demonstration. Around two hundred people marched on the streets of Alameda to defend women's rights. Their demands included the right to abortion across the United States
By Ben Whedon

A group of South Carolina Republican lawmakers have proposed make women who receive abortions eligible to the receive the death penalty.

The "South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023" would revise the criminal code and define a "person" to include the unborn, thereby rendering an abortion legally a murder, The Hill reported.

The would-be law does provide exceptions for women who receive abortions under threat of death or serious personal injury.

It does not, however, allow exceptions for rape or incest.

In January, the state Supreme Court overturned an existing statewide ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, determining that the limitation violated the state's constitution.

South Carolina reintroduced the firing squad as a method of execution in March of 2022.

The Republican-led Palmetto State is one of many GOP strongholds that have moved to curtail abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson decision last year that ended the constitutional right to the procedure.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.