2021 South Carolina Code of Laws
Title 44 - Health
Chapter 41 - Abortions
Section 44-41-60. Abortions must be reported.
Any abortion performed in this State must be reported by the performing physician on the standard form for reporting abortions to the State Registrar, Department of Health and Environmental Control, within seven days after the abortion is performed. The names of the patient and physician may not be reported on the form or otherwise disclosed to the State Registrar. The form must indicate from whom consent was obtained, circumstances waiving consent, and, if an exception was exercised pursuant to Section 44-41-660, which exception the physician relied upon in performing or inducing the abortion.
HISTORY: 1975 (59) 187; 1978 Act No. 587 Section 4; 1990 Act No. 341, Section 5; 1995 Act No. 1, Section 12; 2021 Act No. 1 (S.1), Section 6, eff February 18, 2021.
Editor's Note
2021 Act No. 1, Sections 1, 2, provide as follows:
"SECTION 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the 'South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act'.
"SECTION 2. The General Assembly hereby finds, according to contemporary medical research, all of the following:
"(1) as many as thirty percent of natural pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage;
"(2) fewer than five percent of all natural pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage after the detection of a fetal heartbeat;
"(3) over ninety percent of in vitro pregnancies survive the first trimester if a fetal heartbeat is detected;
"(4) nearly ninety percent of in vitro pregnancies do not survive the first trimester if a fetal heartbeat is not detected;
"(5) a fetal heartbeat is a key medical predictor that an unborn human individual will reach live birth;
"(6) a fetal heartbeat begins at a biologically identifiable moment in time, normally when the fetal heart is formed in the gestational sac;
"(7) the State of South Carolina has legitimate interests from the outset of a pregnancy in protecting the health of the pregnant woman and the life of the unborn child who may be born; and
"(8) in order to make an informed choice about whether to continue a pregnancy, a pregnant woman has a legitimate interest in knowing the likelihood of the human fetus surviving to full-term birth based upon the presence of a fetal heartbeat."
Effect of Amendment
2021 Act No. 1, Section 6, in the first and second sentences, substituted "State Registrar" for "state registrar", and in the third sentence, substituted "obtained, circumstances waiving consent, and, if an exception was exercised pursuant to Section 44-41-660, which exception the physician relied upon in performing or inducing the abortion" for "obtained or circumstances waiving consent".
