Bill requiring 24-hour waiting period on abortions to Senate

A bill that would require women a 24-hour waiting period for an abortion has passed a Senate subcommittee and full committee and has made its way to the Senate. The bill, introduced by Republican Senator Mike Fair of Greenville, requires a woman wait for 24 hours after an ultrasound to have an abortion. Fair says that 70 percent of women that are considering an abortion change their mind after an ultrasound. Fair says he hopes, as a Pro-Lifer, to change the mind of the a woman considering aborting the fetus. “I’m a Pro-Lifer and that is the hope,” said Fair, “that with that one-hour wait that we passed last year, that women upon whom ultrasounds are done will look at the ultrasounds.
“It’s her decision whether to look or not to look and then will decide to go to term. That’s the hope. Again, no mandates on the woman.”
Fair says a precedent has been set for requiring women to wait 24 hours. “A court case coming out of Pennsylvania called ‘Casey’ is 18 or 19 years old now, I believe, where the state of Pennsylvania passed a 24-hour waiting period,” according to Fair.
“That was challenged in the courts and the courts upheld that using a legal term, ‘undo burden’. The law and the state of Pennsylvania w(ere) challenged on the basis that waiting 24 hours was an undo burden and that court case said no, 24 hours is not.”
Fair says if the woman does not have an ultrasound, she must sign a release stating she has read the ‘informed consent’ material which she can pick up at a clinic or receive through the mail.