Dozens in Myrtle Beach protest abortion bans, urge voting in November midterms | Myrtle Beach

MYRTLE BEACH — Dozens of Grand Strand residents gathered at Chapin Park Oct. 8 to rally behind women’s rights, denounce abortion bans and promote voter registration before the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

The Women’s Wave March For Our Rights in Myrtle Beach on Oct. 8 was organized by Grand Strand Action Together, a regional non-profit organization focused on the education and advocacy of various social, political and economic issues.

Lorraine Woodward, a member of the GSAT leadership team, said that the group has organized a women’s march every year since 2017, in conjunction with the National Women’s Movement.

This year, she said, they were especially motivated to hold the march because of the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“It’s an assault on women, honestly, and it is an assault on our bodily autonomy,” Woodward said. “No one else is putting those kind of restrictions on any other gender. We need to make sure that people understand that we are going to fight it until the end.”

The court’s decision repealed the constitutional right to abortion that had existed in the U.S. for nearly 50 years. The ruling now allows states to regulate abortion, and more than 20 conservative-leaning states, including S.C., are considering or have already implemented new restrictions.

The Oct. 8 march featured a variety of speakers — some as young as 17 years old — who expressed their frustration with the current state of American women’s rights, which they described as being under attack by majority-Republican state legislatures, like South Carolina’s.

Anna Shull, a senior at Horry County’s Academy for the Arts, Science & Technology, was one of the youngest speakers at the Oct. 8 event. She said the right to an abortion was a matter of public health.

“As a student who plans on becoming a physician, I place a high value on science and the real effects that abortion bans like ours will have on public health,” Shull said. “It is these horrifying realities that demonstrate the vital need to the right to choice.”

A study from 2021 estimated that banning abortion in the U.S. would lead to a 21% increase in the number of pregnancy-related deaths overall and a 33% increase among black women. Increased deaths from unsafe or attempted abortions would be in addition to these estimates, per the Harvard School of Public Health.

Shull also called out Republican legislators for, in her view, causing women more harm by taking away the right to an abortion.

“Not only will they not let a woman have an abortion, but they will not make any effort to improve the living conditions in this state for the women,” Shull said.

Myrtle Beach residents Allie Harding, 31, Susan Blevins, 48, and Sarah Blevins, 19, said they wanted to attend the march because they feel angry about their rights as women being taken away in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision.

“I already know someone whose gynecologist refused to give them a prescription for birth control based on their religious beliefs,” Harding said.

Since the Roe v. Wade decision, there have been reports across the country of women being refused prescriptions to medications for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, among other conditions, due to those certain medications having the potential to cause miscarriages.

“It’s a health care issue, to be honest, and a human rights issue,” Harding said. “It needs to stop.”

One of the main messages of the Oct. 8 rally was to promote voter registration before the upcoming Nov. 8 midterm elections. Two state Democratic candidates attended the event, including State House District 68 candidate Ernest Carson and State House District 106 candidate Ryan Thompson.

Also, State House District 61 candidate Ashlyn Preaux provided a statement for GSAT leaders to read at the rally because she could not attend. Preaux, the founder of the Palmetto State Abortion Fund, was one of the leaders of the June 29 abortion rights protest that took place in Myrtle Beach after the Roe v. Wade court decision.

At the Oct. 8 march, Woodward emphasized the importance of people registering to vote and then voting in the Nov. 8 election.

“People need to take a look at the choices that they have and what those platforms are for those candidates,” Woodward said. “At the state level, they have tried numerous times to restrict women’s health care in the form of abortion. They’ll do it over, and over again. Right now, it’s just all about voting.”

The overturn of Roe v. Wade has been seen as an opportunity by Democrats across the country to mobilize their base on an issue that had traditionally acted as a bigger motivator for Republicans.

This year, S.C. has added more than 165,000 new registered voters, with over 89,000 of them being women, as of Oct. 3, according to the S.C. Elections Commission.

Residents have until Oct. 9 if they want to register to vote online, by fax or by emailing a completed application to their county voter registration office. (To register or update voter registration, visit scvotes.gov for more information.)

The last chance South Carolina residents have to register to vote in the Nov. 8 election is by mailing a registration application to their county voter registration office. It must be postmarked by Oct. 11.