S. Carolina lawmakers look at the most restrictive abortion bill in the US

Legal Events

S. Carolina lawmakers look at the most restrictive abortion bill in the US

A bill that would allow judges to sentence women who get abortions to decades in prison and could restrict the use of IUDs and in vitro fertilization goes before a small group of South Carolina senators Tuesday.

This would be the first of at least a half-dozen legislative steps for the proposal that includes the strictest abortion prohibitions and punishments in the nation.

The subcommittee of the state Senate’s Medical Affairs Committee can change it Tuesday afternoon and even if it’s approved, its prospects are doubtful at best.

But even at this stage, the bill has gone further than any other such proposal across the U.S. since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, opening the door for states to implement abortion bans.

The proposal would ban all abortions unless the woman’s life is threatened. Current state law bans abortions after cardiac activity is detected, which is typically six week into a pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. Current law also allows abortions for rape and incest victims up to 12 weeks.

The proposal would also do things that aren’t being done in any other state. Women who get an abortion and anyone who helps them could face up to 30 years in prison. It appears to ban any contraception that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, which would ban intrauterine devices and could limit in vitro fertilization.

Providing information about abortions would be illegal, leaving doctors worried they couldn’t suggest places where the procedure is legal.

Republican Sen. Richard Cash, who sponsors the bill and is one of the Senate’s most strident voices against abortion, will run Tuesday’s subcommittee. He acknowledged problems last month with potentially banning contraception and restricting the advice doctors can give to patients. But he has given no indication what changes he or the rest of the subcommittee might support. Six of the nine members are Republicans.

Abortion remains an unsettled issue in conservative states and how much more to restrict it is fracturing anti-abortion groups.
South Carolina Citizens for Life, one of the state’s largest and oldest opponents of abortion, issued a statement last month saying it can’t support Cash’s bill because women who get abortions are victims too and shouldn’t be punished.

On the other side, at least for this bill, are groups like Equal Protection South Carolina. “Abortion is murder and should be treated as such,” founder Mark Corral said.

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Workers’ Compensation Subrogation of Administrative Fees and Costs

When a worker covered by workers’ compensation makes a claim against a third party, the workers’ compensation insurance retains the right to subrogate against any recovery from that third party for all benefits paid to or on behalf of a claimant injured at work. When subrogating for more than basic medical and indemnity benefits, the Texas workers’ compensation subrogation statute provides that “the net amount recovered by a claimant in a third‑party action shall be used to reimburse the carrier for benefits, including medical benefits that have been paid for the compensable injury.” TX Labor Code § 417.002.

In fact, all 50 states provide for similar subrogation. However, none of them precisely outlines which payments or costs paid by a compensation carrier constitute “compensation” and can be recovered. The result is industry-wide confusion and an ongoing debate and argument with claimants’ attorneys over what can and can’t be included in a carrier’s lien for recovery purposes.

In addition to medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages and loss of earning capacity resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, rehabilitation benefits, nurse case worker fees, and other similar fees. They also incur other expenses in conjunction with the handling and adjusting of workers’ compensation claims. Workers’ compensation carriers typically assert, of course, that, they are entitled to reimbursement for such expenditures when it recovers its workers’ compensation lien. Injured workers and their attorneys disagree.