The arguments over the abortion law in South Carolina have been pushed into the new year.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has changed the date of the oral arguments from next month to the last week in January. Attorneys for the state requested that the case be heard by the end of the week due to a scheduling conflict.
The South Carolina measure requires doctors to perform an abortion if they don't see a fetal heartbeat and was signed into law by the governor. The abortion can only be performed if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest and the mother's life is in danger.
Many women don't know they are pregnant at six weeks. The law gives women little time to consider whether to have an abortion, they argue.
Cardiac activity is not a real heartbeat, but an initial flutter of electric activity within cells in an embryo, according to medical experts. They don't believe in abortion bans because the heart doesn't begin to form until the fetus is at least nine weeks old.
The case was supposed to be heard the week of December 6. The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to Mississippi's abortion law. The law in South Carolina has been blocked pending the outcome of the legal challenge.
Mississippi wants the high court to uphold its ban on most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, telling the court it should overrule the landmark Wade decision.
South Carolina is one of a dozen states waiting for the Supreme Court's decision on Texas' abortion law, which has no exceptions for rape or incest and is the most restrictive in the nation.
It's unique enforcement mechanism allows anyone, even someone outside of Texas, to file a lawsuit against an abortion provider, or anyone else who may have helped someone get an abortion after the limit, and seek financial damages of up to $10,000 per person.
In July, 20 mostly Republican-led states went on record in support of South Carolina's law, arguing that a federal judge was wrong to pause the entire measure instead of just the provision being challenged. The attorneys general from the Democratic Party voiced their support for the legal challenge to the South Carolina law, arguing that it could hurt their states by taxing resources if women cross borders to seek care.
