Woman who fled South Carolina for abortion wants court to increase state's abortion limit to 9 weeks

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Taylor Shelton, a South Carolina woman in her mid-to-late 20s, wasn’t planning to get pregnant. She took precautions, including having an intrauterine device.

But it wasn’t foolproof, and she discovered she was pregnant at the four-week mark.

Shelton went to a crisis pregnancy center in Charlotte, North Carolina, which refused to give her an ultrasound because she wanted an abortion.

At the five-week mark she went to her OB/GYN, who refused to perform an abortion because of the state’s fetal heartbeat law.

With only three abortion providers in South Carolina, the soonest she could have been accommodated in the Palmetto State was just after the six-week mark.

“I immediately called an abortion provider only to be confronted by the cruel reality of our state’s abortion ban. Because South Carolina’s law is unclear about exactly when abortion is banned, providers had to assume a ban at the earliest possible time,” Shelton said. “Even though I use contraception, and tested as early as I could, and called as quickly as I could, there still wasn’t enough time for me to get an abortion, and it is not enough time for the vast majority of South Carolinians.”

South Carolina bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Abortion providers interpret that point at the six-week mark, when many don’t know they are pregnant.

The state Supreme Court ruled in August that the state’s fetal heartbeat law is constitutional, but said there is confusion over when a baby’s heartbeat begins.

South Carolina’s ban defines “fetal heartbeat” as “cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac.”

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is seeking to have the state’s fetal heartbeat law interpreted at nine weeks, rather than six weeks. An unborn child’s heart isn’t fully formed until the ninth week, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic attorney Kyla Eastling said.

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