Heartbeat State: Abortion Restrictions and the Maternal Health Crisis in Post-Dobbs South Carolina

Description

In 2023, just over a year after the Dobbs decision, South Carolina enacted a six-week abortion ban, effectively eliminating abortion access before most people know they are pregnant. This research investigates how such restrictive abortion legislation directly undermines maternal health outcomes and drives preventable increases in maternal mortality, particularly among Black women and low-income communities in South Carolina who already face severe obstetric disparities. Drawing on the Abortion Care Today audio archive, existing literature, maternal mortality data, and state and federal policy analysis, this research examines abortion not as a political abstraction, but as essential urgent healthcare. When abortion is banned, healthcare isn’t the only thing to disappear—patients do: to complications, to delays, to bans. The findings are clear. Abortion bans and their “exceptions” strip women of medically necessary care, force continuation of dangerous pregnancies, disregard bodily autonomy, delay treatment for miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy, and drive physicians out of states where clinical judgment has been criminalized. Documented deterioration in female health outcomes fall hardest on women and girls capable of pregnancy. Alongside the academic analysis, a community health booklet was developed to bring these findings to reproductive age South Carolinians, translating research into accessible, actionable knowledge for the communities most affected by these laws. This project concludes that abortion restrictions are not peripheral to maternal health—they are a direct assault on it. The evidence is clear: women are suffering at the hands of dismantled infrastructure meant to protect. Abortion is not an exception to healthcare, but a foundational component of it and South Carolinians are paying the price.

Includes analytical essay and booklet.

Key Terms: Roe v. Wade, Dobbs, abortion, South Carolina, Roe, pregnancy, policy

Team

Members

Student: Madison Wilson

Supervisor: Wesley Hogan