GREENVILLE COUNTY, S.C. – The South Carolina Highway Patrol responded to a fatal crash Saturday afternoon.

Troopers said that the crash was reported to have happened at 3:35 p.m. at the intersection of Augusta Road and Matrix Parkway.

Officials said that four vehicles were involved in the crash. A 2019 Jeep SUV was turning left onto Matrix Parkway from Augusta Road when a 2018 Ford pickup truck traveling south on Augusta Road struck the Jeep.

The two vehicles then collided with a 2018 Mitsubishi SUV and 2005 Honda sedan on Matrix Parkway.

According to troopers, the driver of the Ford was not injured. The drivers of the other three vehicles, along with three passengers in the Mitsubishi, were taken to the hospital.

According to the Greenville County Coroner’s Office, a rear-seat passenger in the Jeep was taken to Prisma Health Greenville Memorial Emergency Department, where he later died from his injuries.

The corner identified the victim as 7-year-old Caius Zaire Blakley from Woodruff.

Spartanburg County School District Four confirmed Blakley was a student at Woodruff Primary School.

The district released the following statement:

This incident remains under active investigation by the Greenville County Coroner’s Office in collaboration with the South Carolina Highway Patrol.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV) — The State Senate Medical Affairs subcommittee continued discussions about Senate Bill 323 – a proposed near-total abortion ban.

The controversial bill creates new definitions for human life, contraception and makes abortion a felony. The bill also removes current exceptions for rape, incest and fatal fetal anomaly written into the state’s six-week ban.

On Tuesday, a motion to send a favorable report on Senate Bill 323 to the full medical affairs committee failed 3-2, with four members abstaining.

READ MORE | “SC looks at most restrictive abortion bill in the US as opponents keep pushing limits.”

The motion came after three hours of discussion of possible amendments to the bill. Some proposals sought to remove criminal and civil protections for pregnant mothers, or return to state law that took precedent before Roe v. Wade became precedent in the 1970s.

Those amendments failed to pass.

The bill’s author, State Sen. Richard Cash, chairman of the Medical Affairs Subcommittee, defended the bill as written – claiming abortion is the number one issue in the state.

“I believe it’s our first duty as elected officials to bring an end to it, to protect innocent human life, life, liberty, property,” Cash said. “The rights are in that order. It is our duty to protect innocent life.”

READ MORE | “Second hearing scheduled regarding SC’s controversial near-total abortion ban bill.”

State Sen. Billy Garrett, one of the bill’s original sponsors, abstained. At one point in the meeting, he said he wants to protect the unborn. However, he was against criminalizing mothers.

“I’m extremely in favor of saving babies’ lives,” Garrett said. “I’ll always be that way. My constituents are that way. They asked me to be that way, and I am, but I have never intended, nor should any of us ever intend to, to punish or be punitive towards our moms.”

Sen. Tom Fernandez and Sen. Cash voted in support of the bill. Sens. Deon Tedder, Ronnie Saab and Brad Hutto voted against it. Sens. Garrett, Matt Leber, Thomas Corbin and Jeff Zell abstained.

“This is an enormous victory for reproductive freedom and for the people of South Carolina,” said Dr. Amalia Luxardo, CEO of the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network (WREN). “This outcome was made possible because thousands of South Carolinians stood up, spoke out, and refused to allow their rights and their futures to be stripped away.”

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A bill that would allow judges to sentence women who get abortions to decades in prison and could restrict the use of IUDs and in vitro fertilization goes before a small group of South Carolina senators Tuesday.

This would be the first of at least a half-dozen legislative steps for the proposal that includes the strictest abortion prohibitions and punishments in the nation.

The subcommittee of the state Senate’s Medical Affairs Committee can change it Tuesday afternoon and even if it’s approved, its prospects are doubtful at best.

But even at this stage, the bill has gone further than any other such proposal across the U.S. since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, opening the door for states to implement abortion bans.

The proposal would ban all abortions unless the woman’s life is threatened. Current state law bans abortions after cardiac activity is detected, which is typically six week into a pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. Current law also allows abortions for rape and incest victims up to 12 weeks.

The proposal would also do things that aren’t being done in any other state. Women who get an abortion and anyone who helps them could face up to 30 years in prison. It appears to ban any contraception that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, which would ban intrauterine devices and could limit in vitro fertilization.

Providing information about abortions would be illegal, leaving doctors worried they couldn’t suggest places where the procedure is legal.

Republican Sen. Richard Cash, who sponsors the bill and is one of the Senate’s most strident voices against abortion, will run Tuesday’s subcommittee. He acknowledged problems last month with potentially banning contraception and restricting the advice doctors can give to patients. But he has given no indication what changes he or the rest of the subcommittee might support. Six of the nine members are Republicans.

Abortion remains an unsettled issue in conservative states and how much more to restrict it is fracturing anti-abortion groups.

South Carolina Citizens for Life, one of the state’s largest and oldest opponents of abortion, issued a statement last month saying it can’t support Cash’s bill because women who get abortions are victims too and shouldn’t be punished.

On the other side, at least for this bill, are groups like Equal Protection South Carolina. “Abortion is murder and should be treated as such,” founder Mark Corral said.