Capitol Report
By Rep. Robert Q. Williams
S.C. House District 62
The House of Representatives amended, approved and sent the Senate H.3020, the “S.C. Fetal Heartbeat Protection from Abortion Act.”
The legislation establishes a prohibition on the performance of an abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected.
Felony criminal penalties are established for performing or inducing an abortion in violation of the legislation which carry a fine of $10,000 and/or imprisonment for up to two years.
The legislation includes a medical emergency exception that allows a physician to perform an abortion to save the life of the pregnant woman or prevent her from suffering substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.
Exceptions are also included to address instances where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
When any of these exceptions are applied, a physician is required to make written notations in the pregnant woman’s medical records that must be maintained for at least seven years.
The legislation establishes a protocol that requires abortion providers to make certain disclosures to pregnant women, perform obstetric ultrasounds and determine whether embryonic or fetal heartbeats are present, and make these available for pregnant women to see and hear.
A civil cause of action is also established that allows a woman to recover damages, court costs, and reasonable attorney’s fees should an abortion be performed that violates the legislation’s requirements.
The House amended, approved and sent the Senate H.4256, a bill addressing funeral services with provisions that include prohibiting the unlicensed conduct of funeral services, enhancing penalties for funeral services violations, and strengthening ethics provisions.
The legislation also eliminates the requirement for a funeral home to have a room containing a displayed stock of at least six adult caskets and instead requires a funeral home to have the means of showing photographs or other representations of available caskets and other necessary funeral supplies.
The House amended and gave second reading approval to H.4152, a bill to accommodate the plastic reclamation operations of businesses that can accept discarded plastics unsuitable for various recycling initiatives and use a gasification or pyrolysis process to heat these post use polymers and recoverable feedstocks to break them down and convert them into such useful materials as oil, fuel, waxes, and lubricants.
Solid waste policy and management provisions are revised to provide that post use polymers and recoverable feedstocks used in pyrolysis and gasification processes are classified as recovered materials, rather than solid waste, for the purposes of regulation by the Department of Health and Environmental Control.