South Carolina Democrats kill Senate GOP's abortion ban with days-long filibuster

COLUMBIA, SC -- At 1 a.m. Friday, after three days of debate and facing a Democratic filibuster with no end in sight, Senate Republicans gave in.

A bill that would have outlawed virtually all abortions in South Carolina was killed Friday morning after the Senate's GOP majority failed — on a fourth try — to sit down the Democrats who were keeping it from getting a final vote.

“We just didn’t have the votes," said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield. "It’s an important issue. We wanted to fight for it. We did fight for it. We have four or five different cloture votes, and it was obvious that we were not going to have the votes we needed to have in order to bash it.”

The bill made exceptions only for cases of rape, incest or serious medical emergencies. It would have outlawed some 97 percent of the roughly 5,700 abortions performed each year in South Carolina.

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