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Johnny Gardener has been lobbying for pro-life bills at the State House for 27 years. He says the concept of personhood has growing support.<\/p>\n
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A crowd of spectators wearing pink or “personhood now” buttons to show their opinions on the bill attend a Senate committee meeting to discuss the rights of the unborn in South Carolina.<\/p>\n
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The Personhood Act of South Carolina would define the human life as beginning at the moment of fertilization, effectively outlawing abortion in the state.<\/p>\n
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The Personhood Act of South Carolina<\/a> could give legal rights to human life from the moment of fertilization, effectively banning abortion in South Carolina.<\/p>\n But even those who strongly oppose abortion believe the measure is flawed and won’t likely survive scrutiny in the state Senate.<\/p>\n “All it\u2019s going to do is get us immediately into a lawsuit, and it\u2019s going to cost the state a bunch of money because DOJ\u2019s going to come in, the ACLU\u2019s going to come in,” \u00a0state Sen. Sandy Senn, R-Charleston. “They\u2019re going to sue the state and we\u2019re going to lose. It\u2019s going to be costly.”<\/p>\n Senn abstained from voting to send the bill to the full Senate because she did not want to vote against a pro-life bill yet felt the personhood concept is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m in favor of incremental changes that could help the pro-life movement,” Senn said. “but not anything that just totally eviscerates Roe v. Wade and that we know we\u2019re going to lose in court.”<\/p>\n Personhood is defined as the state of being a person, and as having human rights as defined by the law. The personhood bill currently before the legislature would give those rights \u00a0to an unborn fetus from the time of fertilization of the egg, a step before implantation.<\/p>\n The Republican-backed bill is headed to the South Carolina Senate after hours of debate and adoption of an amendment during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting February 20.<\/p>\n The judiciary committee voted 12-9, along party lines, with one abstention, to send the bill to the full Senate.<\/p>\n The amendment added during the meeting gave exceptions to the bill including life threatening situations for the mother, contraception, and in vitro fertilization. \u00a0However, the amendment makes no concessions for victims of rape or incest.<\/p>\n Sen. Richard Cash, R-Anderson, a co-sponsor, made that clear when he answered a hypothetical question posed by Sen. Margie Bright Matthew, D-Colleton, about a 10- or 11-year-old child that has incest committed against her and gets pregnant.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a child is raped, yes, that\u2019s a horrible act,\u201d Cash said, referring to the 11-year-old in the hypothetical scenario. \u201cBut two wrongs don\u2019t make a right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot erase the rape by killing the child, and the child is an innocent person,\u201d Cash said, referring to the fetus which the personhood bill would give full Fifth\u00a0and 14th<\/sup>\u00a0Amendment rights.<\/p>\n The Fifth\u00a0Amendment gives people the right to due process of law when accused of crimes. It also prevents self-incrimination and double jeopardy. The 14th<\/sup>\u00a0Amendment secures those rights for people on the state level as well, meaning that no state can violate a person\u2019s Fifth\u00a0Amendment rights.<\/p>\n Cash said the bill would not outlaw hormonal birth control pills unless such a form of contraception were proven to prevent implantation of an already fertilized egg.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had a Christian ob-gyn state that he doesn\u2019t believe that ever happens,\u201d Cash said.<\/p>\n Cash further explained the controversy in the medical community over the several ways in which the pill works, such as the thickening the uterine mucus so that sperm never reaches the egg. That method, Cash says, is not one which would be outlawed by the personhood bill.<\/p>\n However, birth control pills may also work to prevent implantation of the already fertilized egg. Cash says that hasn\u2019t been proven yet, and therefore wouldn\u2019t prevent the use of birth control pills under the personhood bill.<\/p>\n \u201cIf something is proven to affect the human life after it has begun at the moment of fertilization, I think the state would have to take a look at that,\u201d Cash said.<\/p>\n Ceren Farr, a pro-choice advocate who came to the hearing, says she still opposes the bill because it would outlaw certain types of birth control that do prevent implantation.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m against making a fertilized egg a person because then I wouldn\u2019t be able to use an IUD as birth control,” said Farr.<\/p>\n