COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina would cease state health insurance payments for abortions for victims of rape or incest under a measure approved Monday by a House budget panel.

State Rep. Rex Rice, an Easley Republican, said his proposal was more about philosophy than saving the state money in a tough budget year.

“This is basically saying that we cannot afford to fund any abortions in the state health plan,” Rice said as he introduced the measure. He was pressed for how much that would save as legislators scrambled to come up with cash to balance the budget.

“I don’t have any idea,” Rice said. But “I don’t think we ought to be funding any abortions.”

State law now provides exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the health of a mother. But that would end, at least for a year, if Rice’s measure became part of the state’s budget law.

It left Democrats on the panel stunned.

House Minority Leader Harry Ott said if his wife’s doctor told her she’d have to have an abortion or die, “you would not want my health insurance to do what my doctor said was needed in order to save my wife’s life?”

“I don’t believe we ought to be funding abortions with the state health plan,” Rice responded.

The amendment was adopted with a voice vote but its fate is far from certain in the weeks ahead that will shape the budget in the House and Senate.

“That’s going to start a fight,” state Rep. Joe Neal of Hopkins said after the meeting.

Neal noted Rice’s bid for a U.S. House seat.

“This is more about politics than what’s best for the people,” Neal said. “You’re saying a woman must die if she can’t afford to pay for it. ... I just think that’s too extreme.”
Apparently, women's lives are the new price of the fundie vote is in this state.