ACLJ Submits Brief in Defense of Abortion Ban at South Carolina Supreme Court

The American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) has filed a motion with the South Carolina Supreme Court requesting leave of court to file an amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) brief in defense of the State’s pro-life laws on behalf of the ACLJ and more than 127,000 of its supporters (including more than 1,900 in South Carolina).

The lawsuit was filed by members of the abortion industry. They are challenging the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat & Protection From Abortion Act, which bans abortion around six weeks of pregnancy but includes exceptions. In challenging this law, the petitioners are asking the Supreme Court to create a new abortion right in the South Carolina Constitution.

As we explain in our brief, the petitioners’ position is contrary to the separation of powers in that they are asking the court to strip the legislature (and ultimately the public) of its authority to make abortion policy by creating an abortion right in the state’s constitution where one does not exist. Every judge-made or judge-expanded right shifts power away from the political branches, thereby diminishing the right of the people to exercise their voting power to decide or influence important policy questions such as abortion.

Moreover, we explain that the court-created right to abortion that petitioners seek would improperly short-circuit the democratic process. Petitioners are asking the court to exceed its constitutional authority and exercise raw judicial power by creating a constitutional abortion right. When courts improperly constitutionalize important matters of legislative policy, thereby making the judiciary the ultimate policy-making body, courts exceed their authority.

We also explain that the South Carolina Constitution does not give abortion providers a unique privilege to engage in practices that the legislature deems to be unethical or harmful, and that the South Carolina legislature has the power to decide that unborn human beings, like human beings who have already been born, are worthy of legal protection and basic dignity.

The South Carolina lawsuit is one of many lawsuits occurring in courtrooms across the country now that Dobbs has reversed Roe and has restored the authority to address the abortion issue to the states, where it existed before Roe.

The ACLJ is engaged in those battles. Along with submitting our brief in the South Carolina Supreme Court, we have filed two briefs in the Michigan Supreme Court in opposition to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s attempt to have that court create an abortion right in the Michigan Constitution. You can read more about what is happening in Michigan, here, here, here, and here. In addition, we have submitted briefs in the Kentucky and Oklahoma Supreme Courts defending their pro-life laws against lawsuits seeking to establish abortion rights under their state constitutions.

The ACLJ will continue to fight to protect the unborn, and we will continue to keep you informed about our efforts.