By Zoë Richards -
NBC News
Nine South Carolina Republicans who had cosponsored one of the toughest anti-abortion bills in the country have withdrawn their support, backtracking on a measure that proposes to apply the state's murder laws to people who have abortions.
The legislation, which had a total of 24 co-sponsors - all Republicans - since its introduction in January, has lost the support of nine of them in recent weeks.
Representatives Kathy Landing and Matt Leber were the first to withdraw their support in late February.
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Leber, who was also one of the first Republicans to support the measure in January, told NBC News, sister network of Noticias Telemundo, that he had decided that he could not support the current language of the bill and realized that he had no No chance of being approved.
“In its current form, I can't keep my name on it,” Leber explained.
“I would not want to prosecute or accuse women at all, that has never been my philosophy on pro-life issues,” she added.
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The bill has been referred to the state House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, but has not yet been considered.
Leber said party leaders made it clear that "the bill was dead on arrival" and would not make it to the full House of Representatives.
“My intention was to present amendments.
Clean it up,” she said.
“I am very clear that the current language of this bill is not what I stand for,” she added.
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In March, the bill began to receive more national attention.
And that's when other supporters began to back down.
Within two weeks of adding his name as a sponsor, representative David Vaughan withdrew his endorsement Monday, along with representatives Fawn Pedalino, Brian Lawson, Randy Ligon and Patrick Haddon.
In a text message, Vaughan told NBC News: “I have withdrawn my name because I don't think a woman who has an abortion should be criminalized.
Also…I signed that bill by mistake.”
A day later, Rep. Mark Willis announced that he would no longer support the bill, and on Thursday, Rep. Brandon Guffey became the latest Republican to remove his name from the list of sponsors of the bill.
In a Facebook post explaining the change, Guffey said: "I'm pro-life, but that includes the mother's life."
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In an interview, Guffey said that while he was hopeful that an anti-abortion bill would pass this session so that South Carolina would no longer be an "abortion haven state," he could not support the current version.
“My opinion is simply that I don't want abortion to be used as a method of contraception.
I don't think a woman should be killed for having an abortion," Guffey explained.
Guffey said she had not realized the bill included language suggesting a person could face the death penalty for having an abortion before signing it.
Protesters gather outside the House of Representatives in opposition to a proposed abortion ban, in Columbia, South Carolina, in 2022. James Pollard / AP
“I read it, but I didn't click on the code it linked to saying a woman should be sentenced to death,” he said.
The other six lawmakers who withdrew their support — Pedalino, Landing, Lawson, Ligon, Haddon and Willis — did not respond to requests for comment.
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Rep. Jordan Pace lashed out at opposition and media reports that he says have "overstated the death penalty aspect" of the proposed legislation, arguing that the likelihood of a person being charged and facing to the death penalty is “infinitesimal”.
“That is an absurd fallacy,” Pace said in an interview.
"A lot of people who are making that claim clearly haven't read the bill."
“I think it is entirely appropriate to protect all people, regardless of size, shape or location, equally under the law,” he added.
"So if it can be shown that one person killed another, on purpose, then that's by definition homicide, right?"
South Carolina's Equal Prenatal Protection Act "would ensure that an unborn victim of homicide receives equal protection under the state's homicide laws."
The bill identifies a "person" as an "unborn child at all stages of its development, from fertilization to birth."
Under South Carolina law, people convicted of murder can face the death penalty or a minimum of 30 years in prison.
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Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, a Republican, said on Twitter that the bill "has zero chance of passing."
Rep. Rob Harris, who introduced the legislation, did not respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina - who has criticized her party for "showing no compassion" on abortion, which she says has made it more difficult to appeal to the majority of Americans who support it - chided the your state legislators for supporting the bill.
“As a woman and as a victim of rape, I find it deeply disturbing that some in my home state want to give rapists more rights than women who have been raped,” Mace tweeted Thursday.
"And I don't know why I have to say this, but it's not pro-life to execute a woman seeking an abortion after being raped."
South Carolina, which allows most abortions up to about 20 weeks into the pregnancy, has repeatedly tried to enact stronger laws banning abortion.
In 2021, Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, signed into law the Fetal Heartbeat and Abortion Protection Act, which prohibited abortion after six weeks, with some exceptions.
In January, the South Carolina Supreme Court struck down that ban, ruling that it violated a state constitutional right to privacy.
Last month, the South Carolina Senate passed an abortion ban that bans most abortions after about six weeks and says it does not ban contraception.
It also removes a 1974 law that criminalized abortion.
That bill establishes that a woman who aborts "may not be criminally prosecuted" for violating her provisions and will not be subject to a civil or criminal penalty derived from the abortion.