Abortion bans fail in conservative South Carolina, Nebraska

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The ban on abortion in Nebraska and South Carolina failed to advance in close voting amid heated debates between republicansconfounding the conservatives who have dominated both legislatures and further exposing the gulf on the abortion issue within the Republican Party.

In Nebraska, where abortion is prohibited after 20 weeks of pregnancy, an effort to ban abortion around the sixth week of pregnancy fell one vote short of breaking a filibuster. Cheers erupted outside the legislative chamber as the final vote was cast, with opponents of the bill waving signs and chanting: “Whose house? Our house!”

In South Carolina, lawmakers voted 22-21 to file a near-total ban on abortion for the rest of the year. Republican Senator Sandy Senn criticized Majority Leader Shane Massey for “leading us off a cliff on abortion” repeatedly.

“The only thing we can do when all of you men on camera keep metaphorically slapping women across the face by mentioning abortion over and over again is to slap them back with our words,” she said.

The Nebraska proposal, backed by Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, is unlikely to advance this year. And in South Carolina, where abortion remains legal up to 22 weeks pregnant, the vote marked the third time a near-total ban on abortion has failed in the Republican-led Senate chamber since the US Supreme Court. . roe v. inverted wade last summer.

Katie Glenn, state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the failure of both abortion ban proposals disappointing.

“It’s a sign that lawmaking is difficult and there are a lot of pieces and parts that have to come together,” Glenn said.

The bans’ staunchest supporters have vowed political retaliation.

Since the fall of Roe, both states have become regional havens as they have seen neighboring states enact stricter abortion bans. Conservative lawmakers have bitterly made that point in Nebraska, which has a long history as leader in abortion restrictions. In 2010, it was the first state in the country to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The most aggravating thing for some Republicans is that the rejection comes from inside the house. Nebraska’s bill failed Thursday when Republican Sen. Merv Riepe, an 80-year-old former hospital administrator, refused to give it the crucial 33rd vote needed to advance. Riepe was one of the original signatories to the bill, but later raised concerns that a six-week ban might not give women enough time to find out they were pregnant.

When his fellow Republicans rejected an amendment he offered to extend the proposed ban to 12 weeks and add an exception for fatal fetal anomalies, Riepe pointed to his own choice last year against a Democrat who made abortion rights a central campaign issue. His margin of victory fell from 27 percentage points in the May primary, which occurred before Roe’s fall, to less than 5 percentage points in the general election.

“If my opponent had had more time, more money, and more name recognition, I could have won. This made the message clear to me of how critical abortion will be in 2024,” she said. “We must embrace the future of reproductive rights.”

mature and some republicans across the country have noted evidence that abortion bans are unpopular with most Americans. An AP VoteCast national poll of the 2022 electorate showed that just 1 in 10 midterm voters, including Republicans, believe abortion should be “illegal in all cases.” Overall, most voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That includes nearly 9 out of 10 democrats and about 4 in 10 Republicans.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July showed that Republicans are largely opposed to abortion “for any reason” and 15 weeks pregnant. But only 16% of Republicans say abortion in general should be “illegal in all cases.”

Still, Republican politicians who oppose the party’s leadership on abortion can become targets of political retaliation. The reaction against Riepe was not long in coming, with public reprimands from the governor and other Republican legislators. Anti-abortion groups demanded his immediate resignation. And the Nebraska Republican Party issued a statement warning that Riepe would be censored.

“The entities and individuals who aided in the defeat of a core Republican value have been duly singled out by the leadership of this party. ‘Citizen Surveillance’ is applied now more than ever”, read the statement.

Riepe did not return a message Friday seeking comment on the reaction.

Similarly, some of the resisting South Carolina Republicans shared last week that they received anatomical figures of the spine from an anti-abortion group urging them to “grow a spine” and pass a ban from conception.

The South Carolina vote came with days remaining in a session that began shortly after the state’s supreme court struck down a 2021 law that prohibited abortion when heart activity is detected, at about six weeks into the pregnancy. Since then, both houses have advanced abortion bans at different stages, a disagreement that Massey, the Senate Majority Leader, hoped to resolve when considering the House’s tougher bill.

Frustrated after his latest effort to get out of the impasse, Massey issued a warning to the fiercest Republican opponent of prohibition.

“The response to Senator Senn will be in 2024,” Massey told reporters after the vote, referring to next year’s election.

Fourteen states have current bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Four other states have pregnancy bans where courts block the app. Most of those bans were adopted in anticipation of Roe’s repeal, and most have no exceptions for rape or incest.

In Utah, a judge heard Friday an application from Planned Parenthood to delay implementation of a statewide ban on abortion clinics that takes effect next week. Planned Parenthood argues that a state law passed this year will effectively end abortion access statewide when clinics are no longer able to apply for the licenses they have historically relied on to operate.

In North Dakota, Gov. Doug Burgum signed a ban Monday That has limited exceptions: Abortion is legal in pregnancies caused by rape or incest, but only in the first six weeks of pregnancy. Abortion is permitted later in the pregnancy only in specific medical emergencies. The North Dakota law is intended to replace a previous ban that is not being enforced while a state court assesses its constitutionality.

And on Friday, Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee reversed course, approving loosening the state’s strict abortion ban. That change came after several high-profile Republican lawmakers warned earlier in the session that doctors and patients faced great risks under Tennessee’s so-called activation law, arguing that the statute did not include clear exemptions when a doctor can provide services. of abortion.

Pollard reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writer Freida Frisaro contributed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. James Pollard is a staff member of the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on covert issues.

This story has been edited to show that votes in Nebraska and South Carolina blocked the advancement, not passage, of the abortion bills; and that 14 states, not 13, now ban abortion.