SC Legislature at an impasse, conference committee to revisit proposed abortion bans

The South Carolina Legislature continues to be at an impasse on the issue of abortion access. The Senate refused to back down and accept the House's near-total abortion bill Tuesday. Instead, they chose to go forward with a conference committee and recommended three senators to represent the chamber.

A conference committee is created when both chambers of the Legislature cannot agree upon a bill. Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, D-Colleton, and Sen. Richard Cash, R-Anderson were asked to represent the chamber in an attempt to reach a compromise on a version of an abortion ban both chambers could agree on.

With the House now expected to send three of its own representatives to hash out differences, state lawmakers have just over two months to push the law further until a brand new session begins in January, where they would have to start the process all over again.

If the committee is able to find a compromise and put out a conference report, then both chambers would have to vote to adopt the reports to send it to Gov. Henry McMaster's desk.

But if not, the bill is likely to die, at least for this session.

Related:What to know as the SC Legislature, Supreme Court contemplate abortion bans this week

Senate insists upon its version

Hours before the Senate got together for the session, the statehouse lobby was abuzz with protestors. A majority of them carried signs and boards asking senators to "recede" back to the House version they had initially rejected.

Lawmakers voted on whether they would "recede" as soon as the session began. Apart from the female GOP senators, senior GOP lawmakers including Massey, Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, and Sen. Greg Hembree, R-Horry, said no to "receding" in a vote that ended 26-17. After that, a majority of the senators banded together in a vote that ended 38-6 to "insist" upon their version and kickstart the process of forming a conference committee. The entire session was over in less than 40 minutes.

Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, told reporters that she preferred the legislature not rush into a scenario where "poorly written" bills, like the one offered by the House, were passed.

Shealy also said that the continued back and forth over abortions also didn't mean that this was the only issue that legislators needed to be focused on.

"There has to eventually be a compromise," Shealy said. "And there are plenty of other issues in the state that we have to work on."

"We have to look at all sides," she continued. "We work for the state of South Carolina, not just one sector of the state."

As Shealy spoke to reporters, Cash stood in the corner listening.

Cash said that he was disappointed about the Senate’s refusal to recede. "It [the House version] was the kind of bill that almost all those Republicans who voted against the motion to recede actually said they support," Cash said. Similar to what Rep. John McCravy, R-Greenwood had said on the House side, Cash said that he had mostly expected major debate to stem from whether the proposed bill would include exceptions or not. He was surprised to see the opposition from fellow Republicans in his chamber.

With the clock now ticking, Cash said that passing an agreed-upon abortion ban was a "stiff challenge.”

But this is the closest the state has come to passing a drastic abortion ban, so the session wasn't a failure, he said.

What are the major differences between the House and Senate versions

The House's version banned all abortions from the time of conception, except for pregnancies where a mother's life is in danger or occurred due to cases of rape and incest.

Meanwhile, the Senate's version banned all abortions from week six after conception and included the same range of exceptions. It is generally considered a far more restrictive and harsher version of the current six-week fetal heartbeat law, which is currently blocked by the state Supreme Court due to a pending lawsuit.

This version came about after Republican senators Katrina Shealy, Sandy Senn, Penry Gustafson and Tom Davis joined the Democrats to filibuster a version that had no exceptions in it. Shealy and Senn gave impassioned speeches about a woman's right to choose and their right to privacy.

When the Senate leadership realized that there weren't going to be enough votes to overcome the filibuster and vote on a bill that completely banned abortion, Massey introduced an amendment that re-wrote the bill to become a stricter version of the blocked fetal heartbeat law. Gustafson was the only female senator who voted for that version.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: SC legislative conference committee to revisit abortion bans