Judge says South Carolina can enforce 6-week abortion ban amid dispute over when a heartbeat begins

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A state judge has ruled that South Carolina can continue to enforce a ban on nearly all abortions around six weeks after conception as an appeal continues on what exactly defines a heartbeat under the law.

Planned Parenthood had asked the law be set aside as courts parse through its wording, which includes alternate definitions of when cardiac activity starts, potentially extending the time after which abortions can no longer be performed under the 2023 law.

The law says abortions cannot be performed after an ultrasound can detect “cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac.”

The definition is currently being interpreted to mean around six weeks after someone’s last period. But what follows the “or” in the sentence could require that a heart has formed, and medical experts say that doesn’t happen until around nine weeks.

The state Supreme Court itself noted the different definitions when it upheld the law last year, saying resolving them would be a question “for another day.”

Circuit Judge Daniel Coble wrote in his ruling released late Thursday that the state’s long-established legal precedent says that when there are disagreements on interpreting a law, judges need to give the most weight to the intent of lawmakers.

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