Even with its three women Senators refusing to toe the party line, Republicans in the South Carolina Senate had the votes to pass a total ban on abortion. But it could not stop a filibuster threatened by another Republican, Sen. Tom Davis, and the ban failed. Bear in mind that there is already a near-total 6-week ban—and that rape victims and children must now get an abortion within 12 weeks.
"We were never going to pass a total abortion ban," Massey said. "We never had the votes to pass even what the House passed."
Senators did pass a few changes to the six-week ban, including cutting the time that victims of rape and incest who become pregnant can seek an abortion from 20 weeks to about 12 weeks and requiring that DNA from the aborted fetus be collected for police. The bill goes back to the House, which passed a ban with exceptions for rape or incest.
It's unfortunate that the nightmare at hand (e.g. abortion bans with no exception for raped children) encourages "centrist" or "moderate" thought leaders to gravitate toward less severe bans as a sensible compromise. A 6/12 week ban emerging as the pundit-approved compromise is a hill we'll all die on tomorrow, so perhaps they should die on it today instead.
