Campaign

Pence to deliver keynote at fundraising banquet for South Carolina-based pregnancy center

Former Vice President Mike Pence is slated to deliver the keynote address at a fundraising dinner for the Carolina Pregnancy Center in Spartanburg, S.C., in May, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill. 

The Christian center provides counseling, supplies and adoption services to women who decide to go through with unplanned pregnancies. 

South Carolina is the nation’s second presidential primary state, playing a critical role in the contests. Last year, Pence delivered an address at the Palmetto Family Council in South Carolina. Other potential 2024 hopefuls, including South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have also visited the state.

The visit to South Carolina will mark the former vice president’s latest stop in a series of speeches and events across the country. Last month, he visited the first presidential primary state of New Hampshire, where he attended a fundraiser for Republican state Senate candidates and met with local political activists. 

South Carolina’s anti-abortion activist base has been of particular importance to past Republican candidates looking to strengthen ties with the community. 

The abortion debate is playing a major role in the political sphere, as the conservative-leaning Supreme Court is expected to deliver a decision on Texas’s six-week abortion ban as well as the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, which involves a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. 

In November, Pence gave a speech urging the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade one day before it heard oral arguments in the Mississippi case.

In July, Pence said that his organization, Advancing American Freedom, filed an amicus brief also asking the high court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision that established a constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. The group also requested that Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld that right, be overturned.