Greg Delleney, chairman of the South Carolina House Judiciary Committee, is reassuring pro-lifers that a proposed state ban on abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy will ultimately pass.
“I anticipate we will eventually get free conference powers. I didn’t think it was going to be a problem or I wouldn’t have taken the first vote,” he said of the bill, which has already passed the House and Senate, but has twice now failed a final conference committee vote. The state Senate added exceptions for rape, incest, and fatal prenatal abnormalities.
He admitted the failure was “really embarrassing,” but explained that “there’s not 83 Republicans in the House and we do need some Democratic support. Although I think 15 Democrats voted for the bill to begin with and this is a more liberal bill than the bill they voted for, yet about half the people who voted for the bill did not vote for free conference powers.”
A Democrat who opposes the bill, Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, also predicted it will ultimately pass: “It’s just a matter of time for them to get back to it and get three more votes to get it done. The people who were supportive of it were not here and that kept them from getting the 83 votes.”
If the bill is enacted, South Carolina will become the thirteenth state to ban abortions at 20 weeks, a point by which scientific evidence has determined that preborn babies can feel pain. Two types of procedures are used for late-term abortions: the induction abortion method, implemented beginning at approximately 25 weeks gestation, and the D&E abortion, shown below, from about 13 to 24 weeks gestation:
