This summer's legislative hearings on an effort to further limit or possibly eliminate abortion access in South Carolina will most likely take place in a Statehouse besieged by demonstrators.
On Thursday, Hundreds of people on both sides of the debate raging since the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v Wade, descended on the Capitol grounds before noon. They staged noisy demonstrations all afternoon despite hundred degree temperatures.
Inside, a 21-year-old woman speaking against abortion access told the panel the story of her own birth, when doctors advised her parents to get an abortion after an ultrasound showed a severely underdeveloped leg and a cyst on her brain. She is now a college student.
In his testimony against further restrictions Democrat gubernatorial nominee Joe Cunningham cited the story of a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio forced to travel out-of-state for an abortion.
A man who described himself as a concerned citizen of South Carolina scolded the committee saying, “No more of this cowardly middle ground...“There is no middle ground between good and evil.” So far no date has been announced for the next hearing.