A South Carolina woman, Taylor Shelton, sued the state on Monday after she was denied an abortion at around six weeks of pregnancy. She brings this suit along with Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSAT) against the state because of its alleged ambiguous language in  Senate Bill 474 (SB 474), also known as the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act.

The plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction and declaratory relief on the issue of when exactly SB 474 construes that a fetal heartbeat starts in an embryo. The plaintiffs seek to change the “fetal heartbeat” standard that may be interpreted to be at six weeks to be changed to when the cardiac chambers are formed, which medical consensus says is at nine weeks. Currently, SB 474 defines fetal heartbeat to be “cardiac activity” with “the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart.” Doctors and Planned Parenthood seek this relief to:

assuage provider confusion and safeguard the ability of PPSAT- and their physicians including Dr. Farris and staff- to provide medical care consistent with their medical judgment and protect their patients’ health and well being and to protect South Carolinians, including Ms. Shelton, to access abortion at the earliest stage of pregnancy.

Plaintiffs also note in their complaint that some women “may go six to eight weeks, or even longer without experiencing a menstrual period.” In these cases, a woman may not know she was even pregnant before seeking medical care.

South Carolina’s 6-week abortion ban has faced several legal challenges since its inception after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Shortly after Roe was overturned, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed SB 474 into law. After a state court temporarily blocked the law, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld it.