S.C. Rep. Who Voted for Abortion Restriction Shares Emotional Account of Teen Affected: 'That Weighs on Me'

Charmaine Patterson
·3 min read
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Neal Collins, center, speaks with other members of the South Carolina House Judiciary Committe
Neal Collins, center, speaks with other members of the South Carolina House Judiciary Committe

James Pollard/AP/Shutterstock

A republican representative in South Carolina appeared to fight back tears as he recounted the story of a 19-year-old affected by a bill restricting abortion.

During a recent public hearing for the House Judiciary Committee on new legislation that would ban most abortions in South Carolina, Rep. Neal Collins said he previously voted in favor of the fetal heartbeat bill, which bans all abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected — which is around 6 weeks into a pregnancy.

Collins said shortly after that bill became a law, he received a call from a doctor about a 19-year-old who was at a local ER.

"She was 15 weeks pregnant. Her water broke," said Collins in a clip captured by Daily Kos. "The fetus was unviable."

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"The attorneys told the doctors that because of the fetal heartbeat bill, because that 15-week-old had a heartbeat, the doctors could not extract [the fetus]. So their only choices were to admit the 19-year-old until that fetal heartbeat stopped" or discharge her.

He said he asked how long it would take for the heartbeat to stop and was told, "seconds, minutes, hours, maybe days." Doctors ultimately discharged the 19-year-old, who Collins said was sent home to deal with the loss "on her own" and faced a 50 percent chance of losing her uterus in the process. A doctor told Collins there was a 10 percent chance the teen would "develop sepsis and herself die."

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"That weighs on me," Collins said. "I voted for that bill. These are affecting people, and we're having a meeting about this."

After a brief pause, Collins said he didn't get any sleep for days; a week later, he said he reached out to the doctor, who did not know how the teenager was doing.

After following up two weeks later, Collins found out the 19-year-old came back to the ER and doctors "extract[ed]" the fetus, which at that point no longer had a heartbeat.

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"What we do matters," said Collins, appearing to hold back tears.

He continued, "Out of respect for the process, I'm not voting today. But I wanted to be clear that myself and many others are not in a position to vote for this bill without significant changes to the bill."

In a 13-7 vote, the committee opted to move a near-total abortion ban forward to the House floor, according to The State, The Associated Press and The Hill.

On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion and letting individual states decide whether to allow them.

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The 6-to-3 ruling reverses nearly 50 years of precedent and will completely change the landscape of women's reproductive rights by giving individual states the power to decide whether to allow the procedure. It is estimated that nearly half the country will enact near-total bans in the coming months. The decision will divide the country, with most blue states allowing abortion and most red states severely limiting it.