LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Abortion bans in Nebraska and South Carolina fell short of advancing in close votes amid heated debates among Republicans, confounding conservatives who have dominated both legislatures and further exposing the chasm on the issue of abortion within the GOP.

In Nebraska, where abortion is banned after 20 weeks of pregnancy, an effort to ban abortion at about the sixth week of pregnancy fell one vote short of breaking a filibuster.

In South Carolina, lawmakers voted 22-21 to shelve a near-total abortion ban for the rest of the year. Republican Sen. Sandy Senn criticized Majority Leader Shane Massey for repeatedly “taking us off a cliff on abortion.”

“The only thing that we can do when you all, you men in the chamber, metaphorically keep slapping women by raising abortion again and again and again, is for us to slap you back with our words,” she said.

The Nebraska proposal, backed by Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, is unlikely to move forward this year. And in South Carolina, where abortion remains legal through 22 weeks of pregnancy, the vote marked the third time a near-total abortion ban has failed in the Republican-led Senate chamber since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade last summer.

Katie Glenn, the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, characterized the failure of both proposed abortion bans as disappointing.

Since the fall of Roe, both states have become regional havens of sorts as they’ve watched neighboring states enact stricter abortion bans. Conservative lawmakers have bitterly made that observation in Nebraska, which has a long history as a leader in abortion restrictions. In 2010, it was the first state in the nation to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Most aggravating to some Republicans is that the pushback is coming from inside the house. The Nebraska bill on Thursday failed when Republican Sen. Merv Riepe, an 80-year-old former hospital administrator, refused to give it the crucial 33rd vote needed to advance. Riepe was an original co-signer of the bill but later expressed concern that a six-week ban might not give women enough time to know they were pregnant.

When his fellow Republicans rejected an amendment he offered to extend the proposed ban to 12 weeks and add an exception for fatal fetal anomalies, Riepe pointed to his own election last year against a Democrat who made abortion rights central to her campaign.

Riepe and some Republicans across the country have noted evidence pointing to abortion bans as unpopular with a majority of Americans.

In Utah, a judge on Friday heard a request from Planned Parenthood to delay implementing a statewide ban on abortion clinics set to take effect next week. Planned Parenthood argues a state law passed this year will effectively end access to abortion throughout the state when clinics stop being able to apply for the licenses they’ve historically relied on to operate.