What defines a heartbeat? Judge hears arguments in South Carolina abortion case

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina's ban on abortions after roughly six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant, returned to court Thursday with Planned Parenthood and the state arguing over what could be two different ways to define a heartbeat in the law.

Even the state Supreme Court justices who upheld the new law in August noted there appeared to be two definitions of “fetal heartbeat” ending the window in which someone could seek an abortion. They wrote that question would be “for another day.”

That day arrived Thursday, as Circuit Judge Daniel Coble considered Planned Parenthood's request to block the new law until courts could decide in their suit over the definitions and the state's request to throw out the lawsuit. He said he will try to rule in a few weeks. No matter what Coble decides, his ruling will face months, if not years, of appeals.

Planned Parenthood said in court papers that in the first five months of the new law, three-quarters of women seeking abortions were turned away because their pregnancies were too far along, and 86% of those three-quarters could have had the procedure if the law allowed abortions up to nine weeks.

The state contends fetal heartbeat is the moment when an ultrasound detects cardiac activity, usually around six weeks after conception. But the law also mentions when the major parts of the heart come together and “repetitive rhythmic contraction” begins, which is often around nine weeks.

Lawyers for the state are turning Planned Parenthood's argument on its head by arguing that the organization said over 300 times that the law bans abortions after six weeks, during a successful challenge that caused the General Assembly to alter the law and led to the second unsuccessful challenge. They said the group changed its...