As South Carolina governor signs new law, abortion restrictions strain providers in U.S. South

A wave of newly approved abortion restrictions in the Southeastern United States has sent providers scrambling to reconfigure their services for a region with already severely limited access.

South Carolina joined the Southern states putting stiff restrictions on the procedure Thursday when the governor signed a bill banning most abortions around six weeks of pregnancy, setting up an anticipated legal challenge from providers. The law goes into effect immediately.

“This is a great day for life in South Carolina, but the fight is not over. We stand ready to defend this legislation against any challenges and are confident we will succeed,” Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said in a statement.

Pending bans at varying stages of pregnancy in North Carolina and Florida — states that had been holdouts providing wider access to the procedure — are threatening to further delay abortions as appointments pile up and doctors work to understand the new limitations.

“There’s really going to be no way for the whole abortion-providing ecosystem to manage it all,” said Jenny Black, the president of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.

Black, who oversees the organization’s work in North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and parts of Virginia, said providers have had to quickly determine how to comply with the pending laws amid the “decimation of abortion access across the South.” She expects new restrictions will compound the stressors on a system that was already seeing lengthy waiting periods in North Carolina driven by an influx of patients from Georgia and Tennessee.

Abortion is severely restricted in much of the South, including bans throughout pregnancy in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. In Georgia, it’s allowed only in the first six weeks.

A report released in early April by the Society of Family Planning found rising numbers of abortions in states near those with the deepest restrictions but where abortion had remained largely legal. Florida and North Carolina were among the states with the biggest increases — and among those where new restrictions are pending.

Most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy will be banned in North Carolina beginning July 1 and a six-week ban in Florida will take effect only if the state’s current 15-week ban is upheld by the state Supreme Court.

South Carolina had also proven to be a key destination for people seeking abortions. Provisional state…