(LifeSiteNews) — Abortions at a Planned Parenthood facility have plummeted 70 percent since South Carolina’s heartbeat bill took effect last week.
South Carolina Citizens for Life (SCCL), which is located directly across the street from the Planned Parenthood killing center in Columbia, announced the incredible rate at which babies are being saved just days after the state Supreme Court upheld a law which bans most abortions after six weeks’ gestation.
As previously reported by LifeSiteNews, the “Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act” prohibits most elective abortions six weeks into pregnancy, with no protections prior to six weeks. Exceptions are in place for victims of rape up to 12 weeks, for “fatal fetal anomalies,” and to save the mother’s life.
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“Less than 24 hours after the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act, abortions dropped by 70 percent at the Planned Parenthood across the street from the South Carolina Citizens for Life office,” Holly Gatling, executive director of SCCL, said in an August 25 press release.
“In Columbia, Planned Parenthood schedules abortions 2-3 times per week including every Tuesday, first, second, fourth and fifth Saturdays of the month, every third Saturday, and lately the abortion business added most Wednesdays.”
Gatling noted that local sidewalk counseling ministry A Moment of Hope and “many area Catholic parishes offer prayer support on abortions days and assistance to mothers who turn away from abortion.”
“Today was the first full abortion day since the new Heartbeat Law went into effect,” A Moment of Hope president Mark Baumgartner said, encouraging others to “praise the Lord with us” about the pro-life victory.
“We typically have been seeing 20 abortions and today we saw only six,” he continued. “Thirteen clients arrived, six left before an abortion and another [came] on the ultrasound RV and decided to keep her baby.”
Both A Moment of Hope and SCCL emphasized their commitment to “continue [their] work to restore legal protection to the unborn members of our human family at all stages of development” because “each life is precious.”
The bill finally took effect on Wednesday after months of pro-abortion opposition. In January, the state’s Supreme Court shut down the bill, which was originally signed in 2021, citing a “right to privacy.” Two months later, three Republicans voted against the legislation, after which the law was enacted at the end of May.
However, an emergency petition for an expedited hearing of the case temporarily blocked it from taking effect. During the following time in court, a Republican senator was officially censured by her party for her efforts to take down the bill to protect the unborn before the Supreme Court finally upheld the legislation.