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South Carolina Senate Bill 1095 (SB 1095) would create the “Unborn Child Protection Act,” imposing a total abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or fatal fetal anomaly.

This is an extreme bill with a sweeping impact on reproductive health care in the state. It removes protections that prevent the prosecution of pregnant people for their own pregnancy outcomes and explicitly imposes criminal and civil penalties for obtaining an abortion. It also imposes criminal and civil penalties for abortion providers, helpers, and abortion funds, creating a RICO-style scheme that equates abortion provision with criminal organizations. And it reclassifies mifepristone and misoprostol, the two most common abortion medications, as Schedule IV controlled substances.

SB 1095 would prevent people from making the most basic and fundamental decisions about whether or not to have a child. It would also worsen maternal health in a state where maternal death rates are among the highest in the country, causing disproportionate harm to people of color, people in rural areas, people with low incomes, and others who already struggle with access to care.

On April 14, 2026, the Center for Reproductive Rights submitted a letter opposing the bill to the South Carolina Senate Medical Affairs Subcommittee.

The Center opposes the bill on the following grounds:  

• SB 1095 criminalizes pregnancy in South Carolina. 
• It’s an extreme abortion ban that puts pregnant people’s health at risk and does not align with the values of South Carolinians. 
• The bill’s narrow exception—only in the case of death or permanent injury–creates a dangerous chilling effect on health care providers. 
• The death or permanent injury exception does not cover mental health conditions, a leading cause of maternal death in South Carolina.
• Survivors of violence and families confronting fatal fetal diagnoses must be able to make decisions about their own futures, free from state prosecutions.
• A ban on abortion undermines efforts to decrease maternal death rates in South Carolina—a state with one of the highest maternal death rates in the country (29.5 per 100,000 live births).
• Medication abortion presents no potential for substance abuse and should not be designated as a controlled substance.
• The denial of abortion care is linked to numerous social and economic harms, and its impact would fall most heavily on already marginalized communities, including Black people and other people of color, people in rural areas, and those with low incomes.  

If enacted, this bill would take immediate effect.

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