Health and Education, News, Policy Updates

How To: Testify Against the Abortion Ban

Jan 8, 2021

On Wednesday, February 3, 2021, at 2:30pm or 30 minutes upon adjournment of the House, whichever is later, the SC House Constitutional Laws Subcommittee will meet to hear testimony on S.1, a 6-week abortion ban. South Carolina, we’ve seen this before, now it’s time to take action.  Members of the public will have the opportunity to submit prepared statements or give in-person/virtual testimony to the committee on Wednesday.

Here’s what you need to know:

A Note on Testifying Virtually:

After the sign up period has closed the House Judiciary staff will email out a link for the hearing. From previous experience we know that this will likely be a Microsoft Teams meeting and you will be instructed to log in to the Teams link at the time of the hearing and will be placed in a waiting room until your name is called to testify. In the past, those who are in the Microsoft Teams waiting room cannot hear the proceedings of the hearing, so we suggest opening up the live stream of the testimony in another tab or on another device from the Teams Meeting.

During the Senate hearing on this bill some testifiers that were within the Microsoft Teams waiting room were kicked out, so you may have to continuously re-join the Teams link. If you don’t rejoin it then the House staff does not see you in the waiting room and will not call on you to testify. If you experience issues while waiting you can email staff and also tweet at members of the subcommittee. Rep. Justin Bamberg is a reproductive health champion on the subcommittee and his twitter handle is @JustinBamberg

BE PREPARED TO WAIT TO TESTIFY. In the Senate hearing a few weeks ago, some testifiers had to wait a few hours before they were admitted to testify. If you have to log off before you can testify, email WREN your prepared testimony at info@scwren.org so that we can share it on our channels.

Tips:

Not ready to testify by still want to make a difference? Tell your S.C. Rep to VOTE NO on S.1.

Resources:

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