Five doctors in South Carolina have sued in federal district court against the state’s six-week limit on abortion, arguing that the abortion prohibition infringes upon their religious liberty.
Allison Zimmer, litigation counsel with the Lawyering Project representing the five OBGYN plaintiffs in the suit, told the local news outlet Post and Courier that providing abortion services in emergency circumstances that are left vague in the state law can be a matter of faith and an exercise of deeply held religious beliefs through the practice of medicine.
Abortion advocates have sued against state abortion restriction on religious freedom grounds in six other states, but the new challenge in South Carolina is unique because it appeals directly to the First Amendment under the federal constitution.
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The new lawsuit describes the circumstances of one of OBGYN and plaintiff Dr. Patricia Seal’s patients, who suffered from chronic kidney dysfunction and was recommended an abortion by a kidney specialist. Because the patient was more than nine weeks pregnant, however, Seal says she was not able to intervene until her patient was on the brink of needing dialysis.
The American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs, or AAPLOG, an anti-abortion doctor’s organization, argues that state laws restricting abortions do not prevent doctors from performing abortions that are necessary when pregnancy creates a life-threatening medical condition for the mother.
Abortion-rights legal scholars, however, have argued that the statutory definitions of abortion under various state laws passed after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 have made it difficult for doctors to determine in what situations abortions are indeed medically necessary.
But the lawsuit isn’t a limited challenge just to the health emergency exception.
Other co-plaintiff Dr. Natalie Bingham self-identifies as a Presbyterian and argues that the law hinders her religious liberty by not letting her acknowledge that each individual is “empowered by the spirit prayerfully to make significant moral choices, including the choice to continue or end a pregnancy.”
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South Carolina’s abortion ban has come under other recent legal scrutiny, as Planned Parenthood South Atlantic has sued the state over whether the statutory language of “fetal cardiac activity” consists of fetal electrical impulses that pump blood, which are identifiable at six weeks gestation, or only applies after a heart has formed after nine weeks gestation.
South Carolina State Attorney General Alan Wilson, along with the head prosecutors of each of the Palmetto state’s 16 judicial circuits, are named defendants in the suit.
A spokesperson for Wilson’s office told the Washington Examiner that, as of Jan. 10, they have not been served with the lawsuit.
The spokesperson also said that the Attorney General’s office “will continue to vigorously defend [South Carolina] state laws to protect the unborn” but cannot offer further comment on pending litigation.
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Violations of South Carolina’s abortion law are punishable by up to two years in prison, a $10,000 fine, and loss of medical licenses for doctors and nurses involved in the procedure.
In December, South Carolina lawmakers reintroduced a bill to allow prosecutors to charge a woman with homicide for obtaining an elective abortion after the detection of fetal cardiac activity.