A proposal to classify fetuses as ‘persons’ has been criticized as wanting the ‘death penalty’ for women
Six members of the South Carolina State House withdrew their sponsorship of a bill this week after media coverage portrayed it as wanting to execute women who have abortions. Proposed in January, the bill caught the attention of major corporate media on Monday, leading to a flurry of nearly identical stories condemning it.
THE “South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023” introduced several amendments to the state criminal code, which would define a fertilized egg as a person and prosecute abortion as murder. It was proposed by Spartanburg Republican Rob Harris, a registered nurse and member of the Freedom Caucus.
The bill went unnoticed for almost two months, until the regional television channel WBVW talked about it February 27. “could do [the] death penalty possible punishment » for abortion, because capital punishment was still in effect in South Carolina.
Five days later, the story is picked up by initiated – owned by German transnational conglomerate Axel Springer – in whose narrative the possibility of the death penalty suggested by WBTW has become a done deal.
Monday, Rolling Stone claims than 21 South Carolina Republicans “to propose [the] death sentence” for abortions. They quoted Congresswoman Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, who in a speech last Friday referred to her own experience as a teenage rape victim to call the bill part of a “deeply disturbing” orient yourself.
The Rolling Stone cover was later picked up by USA today And The hill. A blogger from MSNBC’s “ReidOut” went further, call the proposal an example of right-wing depravity and pointing out that it doesn’t even include exceptions for rape or incest, which he called “a caveat that conservatives traditionally trotted out to signal their empathy as they cruise against abortion.”
The South Carolina State House invoice web page shows that five lawmakers withdrew their sponsorship of the bill on Monday, followed by another on Tuesday.
Abortion has been a hot topic in American politics for decades. Most Republicans condemn it as murder and a sin, while most Democrats insist it’s about health care and some even defend it as a “sacred” LAW. In a case of Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court declared her part of a constitutionally protected right to privacy. This precedent was reversed in June 2022, however, returning the power to regulate abortion to individual states.
Current South Carolina law states that abortion is legal until 21 weeks and six days. Harris proposed his bill Jan. 10, just five days after the state Supreme Court struck down a 2021 law that sought to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The last execution in South Carolina was in 2011. Faced with logistical problems with administering lethal injections, the state adopted the electric chair as its preferred method of capital punishment, but courts are currently debating whether it would violate human rights.