Rape, incest exceptions spark S Carolina GOP abortion fight

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina's looming Senate debate Wednesday on an abortion ban that would no longer include exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape and incest is likely to leave Republicans facing off with each other.

On the one side are a core group that views any abortion as ending a life. On the other are conservatives who've digested developments elsewhere after Roe v. Wade was overturned and say they don't want 14-year-old rape victims to have to give birth or force a mother to carry to term a fetus unable to live outside the womb.

Debate on the Senate floor is set to start Wednesday morning. Senators have been told the proceedings could last days, although they have recently tried to conclude such debates in marathon one-day sessions.

Democrats on the Senate Medical Affairs Committee helped set up the showdown Tuesday, refusing to vote as the more conservative Republicans removed the exceptions for rape and incest from a bill that passed the House last week. And if the Senate approves the ban, it would return to the House.

Democrats are not going to help Republicans out of a box of their own making by making “an awful bill a very bad bill,” Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto said.

The same bill without the exceptions appeared to fail in the more conservative state House last week before some Republicans maneuvered through a series of votes to allow abortions for rape and incest victims up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

The final vote in Tuesday's committee meeting could foreshadow the closeness of any vote in the full Senate. The Medical Affairs Committee vote 9-8 with two Republicans joining all Democrats.

Democrats also refused to vote on other proposals by Republican Sen. Tom Davis, who has said for weeks that the bill needs to be modified from a...