South Carolina Bill Prohibiting DHHS from Contracting with Entities That Perform or Promote Abortions (H 4491)

H 4491 would prohibit the Department of Health and Human Services from contracting with entities that perform or promote abortions.

The Department would be required to submit a state plan to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to include sections which:

• prohibit the department’s use of financial or other resources for the promotion of performance of abortions;
• prohibit contracting with entities that promote abortions;
• prohibit the enrollment of providers that perform abortions and are licensed by the state as an abortion clinic, either by states exclusion or by the exclusionary effect of state plan waiver provisions, into any program administered by the department; and
• extend such contracting and provider enrollment prohibitions to entities under contract with the department in order that contracts may not subcontract with an otherwise prohibited provider or promoter of abortions.

This would not apply to abortions where the pregnant person’s medical condition is one which, in reasonable medical judgment, so complicates the pregnancy as to necessitate an immediate abortion to avert the risk of the person’s death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of major bodily function, not including psychological or emotional conditions.

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