Closing Arguments to be Presented in Case Challenging South Carolina's Regulation Restricting Access to Abortion Greenville SC - Lawyers for three South Carolina physicians and four reproductive health care clinics will present closing arguments in their case challenging the constitutionality of regulations that govern doctors who perform abortion.
Plaintiffs assert that the rules violate women's constitutional right to choose abortion.
Health care providers challenged South Carolina Regulation 61-12 because it impairs the health of women by imposing significant burdens on women seeking abortion services. Additionally, the regulations place restrictions on doctors who provide abortions that do not apply to other doctors who provide comparable procedures in their offices. As a result, DHEC created a detailed and complex set of requirements, which only apply to physicians' offices or other medical facilities in which a single second trimester abortion or five or more first trimester abortions are performed in a month. A week-long trial was held last July, but closing arguments were delayed to provide Judge Traxler an opportunity to review the evidence, including videotaped and written testimony and transcripts not submitted at trial. M.D. They are represented by Bebe Anderson and Bonnie Scott Jones of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, and local cooperating attorney Randall Hiller.