COLUMBIA, S.C. (Wednesday, June 7, 2023) – The South Carolina Supreme Court decided to allow abortions to continue up to 20 weeks from fertilization pending an abortion industry’s challenge to the new Fetal Heartbeat Act, and meanwhile an Orangeburg woman was charged with killing the baby girl she delivered in a toilet.
On Monday, June 5, the five-member State Supreme Court agreed unanimously to take up the abortion industry’s challenge to the newest Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act (S474) that Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law on May 25. The next day Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses and abortionists challenged the law in State Court and asked for an injunction prohibiting the law from taking effect.
The state’s highest court agreed to hear the case on June 27, 2023, but declined to lift the injunction pending the hearing. That means South Carolina remains a Southeastern abortion destination state because Georgia and Florida protect unborn children with detectable heartbeats and North Carolina has a three-day waiting period for abortions up to 12 weeks while South Carolina has a 24-hour waiting period for abortions up to 20 weeks.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson whose office is defending the Fetal Heartbeat Law said, “We’re pleased the Court granted our motion with such urgency. We look forward to making our arguments in court and defending the rule of law and right to life.”
In the meantime, The Times and Democrat newspaper in Orangeburg reported that 22-year-old Amari Chanel Marsh was charged Friday, June 2, with homicide by child abuse. Marsh is accused of giving birth in a toilet March 1 to a baby girl who died. If convicted, Marsh faces up to 20 years in prison. She remains in the county jail pending a bond hearing.
Times and Democrat reporter Martha Rose Brown wrote, “An Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office incident report claims Marsh knew she was pregnant in November of 2022. She visited Planned Parenthood in Columbia in January where she was provided with medicine ‘which would possibly cause an abortion to occur,’ the report claimed.”
In another news report by The State, the headline reads “Woman Leaves Her Newborn Baby in Toilet Covered with Toilet Paper.” Reporter Micaiah Bilger noted, “South Carolina has several laws to protect unborn babies from abortion, but they currently are blocked by court order.” Bilger wrote that the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office incident report noted after Marsh’s January appointment with Planned Parenthood, Marsh “did not go to her follow up abortion appointment to see if the abortion drugs successfully killed her unborn baby and expelled the body from her womb.”
The T&D and The State both reported that on February 28, Marsh experienced abdominal pain and went to the local hospital. After learning she was pregnant, and the baby’s heart was beating, she returned home. At 3 a.m., according to the sheriff’s office investigation, Marsh gave birth in the toilet, the newspapers reported.
Marsh called 911 at 3:16 a.m. “and was told multiple times by the Orangeburg County EMS to take her baby out of the toilet and wait for emergency responders to arrive,” Bilger wrote. “When they did, medics said they found the baby girl still in the toilet and ‘covered in used toilet paper’ according to the report they said Marsh told them she was in shock and did not know what to do. Medics said the baby girl was still alive, and they tried to save her as they took her to the hospital; however, she died a short time later the Sheriff’s Office reported.”
Bilger wrote, “The horrific allegations serve as a reminder that infanticide is still a problem in the United States…But details of the alleged crime also raise questions about the Planned Parenthood abortion chain and if it improperly dated the young woman’s pregnancy, putting her and her unborn baby’s lives at risk.”
These are developing news stories that will be followed by South Carolina Citizens for Life.
Chelsea Garcia is a political writer with a special interest in international relations and social issues. Events surrounding the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel are a major focus for political journalists. But as a former local reporter, she is also interested in national politics.
Chelsea Garcia studied media, communication and political science in Texas, USA, and learned the journalistic trade during an internship at a daily newspaper. In addition to her political writing, she is pursuing a master's degree in multimedia and writing at Texas.
