Editor's note: This piece was co-authored by Caitlin Connors.
Planned Parenthood is at it again. For the third time since 2022, South Carolina Planned Parenthood is attempting to use the judicial system to bypass the democratic process and impose their will upon the people.
After putting the state’s first heartbeat law on the books that went into effect with the Dobbs decision, Gov. McMaster and Republicans in the legislature won big in the election. McMaster won by an 18% margin and Republicans secured a supermajority in the state House. With their profits at stake, Planned Parenthood sued and the state Supreme Court struck down the 2021 heartbeat law. McMaster signed a new heartbeat law with a technical fix that withstood another Planned Parenthood challenge at the Supreme Court.
Now Planned Parenthood is back trying to take down the law that Republicans had a mandate to pass. In the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood challenges the consensus that a baby’s heart is beating at six weeks and claims that a fetal heartbeat instead begins at nine weeks.
The true medical consensus is this: Around six weeks gestation, a baby’s heart beats around 110 beats per minute. The heart is the baby’s first organ to form and function. Once a heartbeat is detected, a baby has over a 90% chance of surviving to birth.
Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit goes against the science. Their denial that an unborn child is alive and has a beating heart at 6 weeks’ gestation is blatantly ignoring the basic science of human development. Planned Parenthood previously posted on their own website that a heartbeat begins at 6 weeks. Under fetal development during the fifth and sixth weeks of gestation, they listed “a very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop.” At the same time, Planned Parenthood Action Fund says that a heartbeat does not begin until around 17-20 weeks of pregnancy.
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The abortion lobby’s spin on a baby’s heartbeat isn’t unique to South Carolina. They’ve been in other states saying the heartbeat you hear at 6 weeks isn’t a heartbeat, but rather “electrical activity, and the sound that you 'hear' is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine.” Or, as Stacy Abrams infamously said: "There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman's body."
Parents like us who have had children in the last several years know that a heartbeat begins earlier than Planned Parenthood is contending in this lawsuit. When they find out they are pregnant, women are generally scheduled for their first OB-GYN appointment at eight weeks. The most important part of that first appointment is the ultrasound where they try to detect a heartbeat. A heartbeat greater than 100bpm is a sign that baby is okay. And when moms go in for that appointment, they’re asked: “Would you like to hear the heartbeat?” They’re not asked: “Would you like to hear the sound of electrical activity manufactured by our ultrasound machine?”
In addition to the science, Planned Parenthood would also like the state’s high court to completely disregard legislative intent in the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act. As a representative of Gov. McMaster’s office pointed out in oral arguments this week, legislators referred to the law as being a six-week protection more than 600 times in the legislative record. But because this interpretation is not aligned with Planned Parenthood’s profit motive, they are asking the justices to legislate from the bench.
Heartbeat laws save lives. South Carolina’s heartbeat law protects 4,819 lives annually. With the passage of pro-life laws in Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina in 2023, the South became the safest region of the country for unborn children. Based on the latest data we have available, there was a significant 78% decrease in abortion in South Carolina in the first month that the law went into effect.
Planned Parenthood simply cannot accept that South Carolina is a pro-life state. The abortion lobby’s agenda goes far beyond just moving our state’s abortion limit from six weeks to nine weeks. They and the Democrat party want to wipe every pro-life law in the country off the books and to replace them with abortion at any point in pregnancy. South Carolinians won’t fall for their charade.
Drew McKissick is chair of the South Carolina Republican Party. Caitlin Connors is regional political director for SBA Pro-Life America.
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