2023 Profile in Courage recipients are five South Carolina senators

This year’s recipients of the Profile in Courage Awards is one very special group.

The 2023 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award will be presented to five South Carolina senators: Katrina Shealy, Margie Bright Matthews, Mia McLeod, Sandy Senn and Penry Gustafson. The women are known for forming a bipartisan coalition to filibuster a near-total abortion ban in their state. 

In April of this year, the five women helped block a near-total abortion ban, delivering speeches in which they highlighted the Senate’s male majority and criticized it for pushing debates on abortion over other pressing issues, per the Associated Press.

The bill would have banned abortion at conception. Exceptions would be made for rape or incest through the first trimester, fatal fetal anomalies confirmed by two physicians and to save the patient’s life or health. As of Aug. 23, South Carolina upheld restrictions that would ban most abortions after around six weeks of pregnancy, per NBC News.

Since 1989, the Kennedy family and John F. Kennedy Library Foundation have presented the awards to public servants who have made impactful and life changing decisions regardless of personal or professional consequences.

This year, a special International Profile in Courage Award will honor South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. They will be celebrated “for working to improve relations between their countries despite domestic opposition stemming from long-standing historical issues,” per the press release.

Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and her children, Jack Schlossberg and Tatiana Schlossberg, who are members of the Profile in Courage Award Committee, will present the honors on Oct. 29 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts.

“This year’s Profile in Courage Awards honor leaders who took stands of conscience and risked their careers by putting the public interest ahead of their own political standing,” said Kennedy in the press release. “The women of the South Carolina Senate set an example for those seeking justice and individual freedom at all levels of government. President Yoon and PM Kishida are doing the hard work of reconciliation in pursuit of a more peaceful world. All of the honorees demonstrate a commitment to democracy at a time when courage is required.”

Schlossberg added, “The women of the South Carolina Senate exemplify courage and cooperation in politics today. Facing intense opposition and personal attacks, Senators Shealy, Matthews, McLeod, Senn, and Gustafson worked together and across the aisle to oppose a total ban on abortion. Their impact extends beyond the state, inspiring Americans everywhere to keep fighting to protect individual rights.”

Last year, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Republican Rep. Liz Cheney were among the five people honored at the 2022 event.

The Profile in Courage Awards are named in honor of JFK’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1956 book “Profiles in Courage.”