Appellate arguments over a lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s abortion law have been pushed into the new year. Oral arguments in the case had originally been planned for next month, but the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rescheduled them for the last week in January, according to an order from the court. Earlier this week, attorneys for the state also requested that the case be heard toward the end of that week, due to a scheduling conflict. Medical experts say the cardiac activity is not an actual heartbeat but rather an initial flutter of electric activity within cells in an embryo. They say the heart doesn’t begin to form until the fetus is at least nine weeks old, and they decry efforts to promote abortion bans by relying on medical inaccuracies. The 4th Circuit had originally planned to hear the case the week of Dec. 6. That’s a week after the U.S. Supreme Court hears a challenge to Mississippi’s new abortion law. South Carolina’s law has been blocked, pending the outcome of that legal challenge. Source:US news