As Republicans across the country head to Milwaukee next week for the Republican National Convention, abortion won’t be at the forefront of the GOP’s week-long bid for the nomination of former President Donald Trump.
In the new platform announced by the party before the convention, Republican leaders agreed that “power [on abortion] given to the states and the vote of the people” and leaves the issue of pregnancy limits up to the individual states.
In states like South Carolina, that could almost mean abortion bans, as three GOP women who opposed the six-week ban last year voted in the Republican primary this summer.
Three women — state Sens. Sandy Senn, Penry Gustafson and Katrina Shealy — joined two Democratic women to form a coalition called “sister senators.”
Coincidentally, the only women in the state Senate are 5 mixed together to block a version of the anti-abortion lawnational income awards and recognition.
But this move and their subsequent votes against the abortion ban it became lawIt cost Republican women their political careers.
“We’re not stupid,” Senn told NBC News in a phone interview last month. “We certainly knew as Republican women that this could easily happen [political] don’t collapse.”
Senn, Shealy and Gustafson lost their chances for re-election in the Republican men’s primary.
That means there will likely be no Republican women in the chamber after the next term, which Senn and Gustafson describe as devastating, begins.
“There’s a bigger picture here,” Gustafson said in a phone interview last month. “This means that Katrina Shealy is the only female chair of a committee – it took years to get to this point.”
Gustafson added, “With Republicans having a supermajority, Republicans will be committee chairs. So there is no republican woman. This means that there has been no committee chairman for years. One must be elected, then serve, and prove himself and be elected. …The way I see it, we won’t have another female committee chair for at least another 15 years. Minimum.”
Former Lancaster County Councilman Allen Blackmon, state Rep. Matt Leber and Carlisle Kennedy, three self-proclaimed anti-abortion men who defeated their GOP “brother senators.” It is not clear how they will vote on the bill, however critics are afraid they can support it If a more extreme abortion ban comes up in the state Senate.
Kennedy went that far Talk to the Lexington County Chronicle said he had a “disagreement” with Shealy over her vote against the abortion bill.
Redistricting, which was completed in 2021 and made Gustafson and Senn’s districts more conservative, also may have played a role in the early results, they said.
“I was convinced going into the vote that my district was the most in danger of losing this vote,” Gustafson said, adding, “I knew that because I have a very, very conservative district, and with redistricting, it’s even more so.”
Senn added that his district has been redrawn to include a more rural and conservative part of the state, where “those people will think differently than, I would say, Dorchester, Summerville or Charleston, where I live. from me,” he said.
When the next session begins in 2025, the state Senate will likely have only two women, state Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, one of the Democrats who joined the “sister senators” filibuster, and state Sen. Tameika Isaac Devine, a Democrat. won a special election and took office earlier this year.
“It’s not about gender politics,” Gustafson said, adding that “Republicans like to say, ‘Oh, it’s just gender politics.’ No, it isn’t. More than half of our population is women in South Carolina, more than half.
Senn added that he doesn’t think the state’s current abortion law or future bans will prevent women from seeking reproductive care. Abortion pills such as mifepristone are sometimes available from non-medical sites and sometimes online. sent from abroad.
A study conducted earlier this year of pregnant and non-pregnant women they request abortion pills online more often, including from services that allow telehealth appointments from states where abortion is less restricted.
“Women are going to do what women are going to do regardless of any laws,” Senn said.
A study by the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights think tank, found that abortion rates relatively the same across nations where abortion is legal and restricted.
Both Gustafson and Senn said they don’t regret their decision to oppose South Carolina’s abortion ban, even though it was later passed, despite their initial loss.
Last month, female senators from both sides of the aisle gathered to watch Shealy’s primary results. After he rallied, he was defeated. total 37.5% your voice
“I didn’t really cry until the main night of Katrina, and we all did,” Gustafson said. “I got more emotional when I saw my sister senators come together.”
“But our being there together made it full circle. It was, it just seemed right. And we really have a real bond that I didn’t think we’d have a year ago,” he added.
Senn and Gustafson told NBC News that the women plan to stay together while some leave the ward.
Gustafson said she spoke with Senn and Shealy about their initial plans to start a consulting project to help future Republican women running for office in the Palmetto State.
“But right now it’s just an idea,” Gustafson said.