By Andy Brack  |  More than 600 people, many of them shouting “My body, my choice,” marched midday Saturday from Charleston City Hall to the U.S. Custom House to support reproductive rights.

Across the state, hundreds more were expected at similar rallies in Columbia, Greenville and Myrtle Beach  to send a strong message against a restrictive abortion measure, known as the “fetal heartbeat” law, that state legislators passed in February.

Organizer Erica Cokley, left, rallies the marchers at the U.S. Custom House.

“The marches this weekend continue to highlight the still heinous attitudes toward women in South Carolina,” said Charleston women’s right’s advocate Jennet Robinson Alterman   “Consider that women did not serve on juries until 1969. We have among the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality in the U.S. 

“Women’s reproductive rights are practically nonexistent. Women are still paid significantly less than men to name just a few of the reasons we march and march and march.”