When bills are passed in any legislative body, whether at the state or federal level, one side of the political aisle or party is bound to be a bit unhappy. Such is simply the nature of the two-party beast we have created.
Given this fact, you’d think that both sides would be rather used to not always getting their way. You would also likely assume that even if one side was more prone to winning than the other, that the loser would be professional about the whole situation.
After all, these are grown men and women who are supposed to be doing the people’s bidding.
If most House or Senate votes in one direction, that’s supposed to mean that the people’s will is being done and has prevailed. Votes in such houses are intended to represent the way their constituents feel on the matter at hand.
However, it would appear that it isn’t always the case, at least when it comes to Democrats.
This past week provided us with a prime example of this in South Carlina.
Here, the state’s House was called together to vote on the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion act. As you can likely surmise from its name, the bill is meant to protect unborn children with a heartbeat.
According to the Associated Press, the legislation requires physicians or abortion doctors to use ultrasound to verify that the unborn child has a heartbeat and is healthy. If that is the case, then the child cannot be aborted.
Of course, there are a few exceptions to the rule, such as when a child poses a direct threat to the mother’s health or if said child is a result of rape and/or incest.
Doctors who perform an abortion on a baby with a healthy heartbeat can see up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
And, per the AP, on Wednesday, the bill was passed in the South Carolina House with a vote of 79 to 35. This comes after the state Senate also passed the bill last month, with a vote of 30 to 13.
As the bill was much anticipated in the state and abortion is always controversial, local reporters covered it well. And the drama of the bill didn’t disappoint.
As Maayan Schechter of The State reported, Democrats in the House became so enraged when it became clear the bill would pass, and their party wasn’t making any headway that a group of them stood up and stormed out much like an immature and insolent teenager.
Schechter has the video of their embarrassing tantrum below.
Of course, as deliberations were not complete and more issues needed to be discussed for the day, the Democrats were forced to return to the House chamber. And, unsurprisingly, they wouldn’t let the matter go until they had proceeded to yell and scream a bit more.
One Democrat, state Representative Gilda Cob-Hunter, even tried to insinuate that Republicans were hypocritical on the matter since they obviously weren’t pro-life when they supposedly took five lives on Jan. 6 at the nation’s capital.
Cob-Hunter was reported as saying, “Maybe I missed some of your pro-life comments on Jan. 6 when five people were killed.”
If there is one other thing besides unlimited abortion that Democrats seem to rally around, it is the idea that all Republicans are Trump supporters, and somehow that makes them all bigoted, racist, and evil, not to mention insurrectionists.
Ultimately, the left-leaning party’s tantrum did little, if anything, to change the outcome. As I mentioned, the bill was passed and was quickly sent off to the Governor’s office to be signed into state law.
According to The State, Republican Governor Henry McMaster signed the bill on Thursday, potentially saving the lives of countless unborn future children.
He tweeted out, “Today, we made history. The Heartbeat Bill is now the law of South Carolina and we will defend it with everything in us because there is nothing more important than protecting the sanctity of life.”
And while the bill is expected to get some pushback from various left-leaning lawsuits, we can hope that it is upheld in court and, as state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey says, help to save “thousands of lives in South Carolina every year.”