Last September, at three months into their second pregnancy, the young couple from South Carolina received a devastating prognosis. And two bleak options.
A maternal-fetal medicine specialist suspected triploidy, a fatal genetic condition in which chromosomes are tripled rather than doubled, after many genetic tests and an ultrasound showed the baby was not growing normally. The couple may choose to wait for their daughter to pass away while still in the womb or within a few minutes or hours after giving birth. Or they might stop.
But in order to be eligible for an abortion under the state’s few exclusions, the couple had to demonstrate that their unborn child’s condition was terminal due to a new legislation in South Carolina that forbids pregnancy termination if heart activity is seen on an ultrasound. The mother, who wished to remain anonymous to preserve the privacy of her family, stated that although heart activity could still be heard, the medical team was unable to take a placental sample since the pregnancy was so immature. The mother added that she and her husband made the decision to leave the state when they started discussing whether to remove her uterus. In Virginia, where abortion is permitted, their doctor put them in touch with a hospital.
The mother told States Newsroom, “I feel discouraged from ever trying to do this again.” She and her husband sought the abortion so she could begin to grieve for her lost child and take care of herself. I adore being a mother. I’d like children. I have a lovely child. However, given the current political environment, it might be far worse if I ever experience something similar again.
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Refusing to treat pregnant patients has become a terrible new aspect of the work for some OB-GYNs in South Carolina. A group of OB-GYNs is requesting that a federal court reverse the state’s abortion ban in a first-of-its-kind case that might have national repercussions. They argue that the prohibition prevents doctors from performing abortions that are required by their religious convictions.
The majority of people enter the medical sector with the intention of helping others, and they have strong feelings about this, especially in their area of specialization. According to Dr. Natalie Dawn Bingham, an OB-GYN who works in Columbia and is an elder at First Presbyterian Church in Spartanburg, “as human beings, we also have a conscience and religious beliefs that sustain and nurture what we do in our professional realm.”
She is the principal plaintiff among five physicians who claim that the exclusions to the state abortion statute violate the free exercise and due process clauses of the First Amendment because they are too ambiguous. The state’s so-called fetal heartbeat law, which was passed in 2023, essentially outlaws abortions at six weeks of gestation, which is before many women discover they are pregnant. (Planned Parenthood contends that the legislation ought to permit abortions up to the ninth week in a different state litigation.) South Carolina’s law contains exceptions for deadly fetal illnesses, if the pregnant person is in risk of dying, and if the pregnant person has an irreversible physical handicap, similar to previous laws passed in Florida, Georgia, and Iowa.
These exceptions, according to Bingham, who has been in the state since 2005, are ill-defined and challenging to qualify for. This has led to discussions about whether a fetus that is going to die within hours or days of birth still qualifies as having a fatal condition, or whether a mother’s diagnosis of cancer or severe hypertension would be considered a medical emergency. She claimed that the state had changed what were once medical inquiries into legal ones, with the potential penalties being two years in jail, a $10,000 fine, and the loss of one’s medical license.
Doctors must report abortions performed under the exceptions, keep records of such procedures for seven years, and offer comprehensive medical documentation proving the diagnosis of a fatal fetal abnormality in order to be in compliance with the legislation. The lawsuit claims that several institutions where the plaintiffs work demand agreement from several doctors, and many are concerned that prosecutors or medical board members may subsequently question their judgment.
When you already disregard the medical judgment of those making these judgments, how can you claim that you could access these exceptions based on reasonable medical judgment? “Like the other OB-GYN plaintiffs in the case, Bingham works with high-risk patients,” the statement read. Any arbitrary prosecutor without medical knowledge could later raise that as an issue of contention.
Abortion is permitted up to 12 weeks gestation in circumstances of rape or incest. A police complaint must be submitted within 24 hours following the abortion, according to the legislation, and the doctor must inform the patient of this. According to the complaint, there was a rare occasion when a rape victim was prepared to tell authorities about the rape, but the police insisted on visiting her house to finish the report. The patient left South Carolina permanently as a result of the humiliating incident.
The lawsuit further points out that because many survivors are adolescents or teenagers and frequently don’t find out they are pregnant until later, the 12-week limit further prohibits them from obtaining abortions under these exemptions. According to state health data, fewer than five abortions were performed under the rape or incest exception between August 2023, when the law went into effect, and December 2023.
According to Bingham, because to legal concerns, the sole OB-GYN for children and adolescents relocated to Virginia.
When U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, questioned Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his recent confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance if he supported conscience rights for anti-abortion medical professionals, Kennedy Jr. said that he did.
“It doesn’t make sense to me as a provider to force someone to participate in a medical procedure that they believe is murder,” Kennedy said.
The Weldon Amendment, which bears the name of Dave Weldon, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is one of numerous federal statutes that permit clinicians to choose not to perform abortions, despite connotations to the contrary.
Religious freedom rules have been effectively invoked by anti-abortion organizations in recent years to argue against the requirement to offer or refer for contraception. The Affordable Care Act’s birth control coverage requirement was declared to be a violation of the religious freedom of for-profit business owners by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2014 case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. In the 2020 ruling in Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court maintained the Trump administration’s rules permitting employers that have moral or religious objections to refuse to cover their employees’ contraception costs.
Bingham v. Wilson, which was filed last month, is among the first federal cases to examine doctors’ rights to practice their religion and conscience from the standpoint of abortion rights.
About 18 months ago, Bingham said she and other doctors started talking about their legal possibilities at an OB-GYN conference.
Bingham noted that South Carolina has a conscience law that permits health providers to refuse care, so if there is a right to refuse care, there certainly seems to be a corollary where we have a right to provide care, especially based on our conscience, followed by the tenets of each of our own religions, and based on years of training and dedication.
Dr. Patricia Seal, a complex family planning specialist and member of the Incarnation Lutheran Church, Dr. Jessica Tarleton, a Christian and Jewish complex family planning specialist, Dr. Katee Wyant, an OB-GYN, and Jane Doe, an anonymous complex family planning professional, are among her co-plaintiffs. The Lawyering Project and the Law Office of Bill Nettles represent them.
According to Rupali Sharma, the founder and senior counsel at the Lawyering Project, these five doctors are sacrificing their most precious principles virtually every day. They feel as though they are putting their license, their families, and their freedom from incarceration above that patient when they refuse to provide abortion care to someone who could now face long-term, crippling physical or mental health consequences. This is because their faith requires them to put others before themselves, and these doctors simply cannot adhere to that.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs seek to have the rule repealed or at the very least made clear that, in situations where it is permitted, law officers must give a woman’s doctor priority. They contend that by permitting certain secular exceptions but not religious ones, the law discriminates.
According to the complaint, South Carolina’s abortion ban is neither broadly applicable nor religiously neutral. For a wide range of secular reasons, it permits people to end potential life. Similar to how abortion treatment mandated by the plaintiffs’ firmly held views would undermine South Carolina’s alleged purpose in criminalizing the termination of potential life, these accommodations do the same.
According to Sharma, the Lawyering Project claimed that an Indiana law mandating abortion facilities to bury or cremate the remains of all abortions and miscarriages was unconstitutional under the free exercise clause prior to the 2022 Dobbs ruling. They were successful in blocking the law until the injunction was lifted in 2023.
Since then, pro-religious activists have contested abortion restrictions in Kentucky, Indiana, and Florida, claiming that their religious beliefs force them to have abortions under specific conditions. While the case in Indiana is still ongoing, the lawsuits in Florida and Kentucky were dismissed for lack of standing.
Abortion-law expert Mary Ziegler said that unlike these state lawsuits, the South Carolina doctors might have a better claim of standing because they can cite direct harm, as they re prohibited from providing care their religion would mandate. However, she noted that the legal theory has hardly ever been put to the test in court, despite the fact that legal literature has expanded around the secular vs religious exceptions debate. According to the legal professor at the University of California Davis, plaintiffs in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case received compensation despite not being the ones providing direct medical care.
It wasn’t as though the Hobby Lobby employer was providing birth control. There were lots of other steps along the way, whereas in this case the physicians are arguing that they are not intervening when they feel religiously obligated to, Ziegler said.
In some of these abortion-rights religious freedom cases, the challenged states havecast doubton plaintiffs sincere religious beliefs.
Sharma says to doubt the religious and conscientious beliefs of her clients is not to understand their jobs.
It s about when you see suffering and you re empowered to stop it, you stop it, right? Sharma stated. And the idea that these things wouldn t be central to most faiths, is kind of astounding to me. Of course, abortion and religion are interlinked, because abortion for many people and religion for many people is about you mattering and your life mattering and your family mattering, and being able to preserve those things and protect those things.
Eliot Pierce is a dedicated writer for ChiefsFocus.com, covering local crime and finance news. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for storytelling, Eliot aims to provide his readers with clear and insightful analysis, helping them navigate the complexities of their financial lives while staying informed about important local events. His commitment to delivering accurate and engaging content makes him a valuable resource for the community.