Two US state senates, Nebraska and South Carolina, have recently rejected bills that would have restricted the right to abortion.
In Nebraska, the so-called “Heartbeat” bill would have banned most abortions after six weeks of gestation, when the fetal heartbeat can be detected, although in many cases many women don’t even know they are pregnant.
The vote to approve it failed, with Republican Merv Riepe abstaining, leaving the measure within a vote of the two-thirds majority needed for consideration. Riepe had proposed an amendment to move the ban to twelve weeks, but his proposal was not voted on this occasion.
Currently, Nebraska prohibits terminating a pregnancy in most cases after 20 weeks.
Likewise, the vote this Thursday in South Carolina also dismissed the “Protection of Human Life” bill, which would have abolished abortion in the state, with exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.
This is the third time that a near-total ban on abortion has failed in the Republican-majority chamber since the repeal of federal abortion rights last June. But the efforts are still on and the bill will move to next year’s legislative session, which begins in January.
Senator Katrina Frye was one of the three Republican women who voted against it and lamented that if the proposal had leaked any pregnant woman would have become “the property of the state.”
To this day, in South Carolina the termination of pregnancy remains legal up to 22 weeks.
Since the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion half a century ago, 19 of the 50 states have banned or severely restricted abortion, and in 13 of the 50 states access to the service is free. the practice impossible although there are exceptions.