There’s just one abortion clinic left in Mississippi as a result of state Republicans’ assault on reproductive freedom, and officials are doing their best to shut it down, too.
Three weeks ago, on March 19, Gov. Phil Bryant signed a 15-week abortion ban into effect, contravening clear Supreme Court precedent. The Center for Reproductive Rights secured a temporary injunction almost immediately. Now, CRR has filed a second complaint, along with law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; Mississippi civil rights attorney Robert B. McDuff; and the Mississippi Center for Justice, re-upping their claims.
This time, in addition to challenging the ban that would punish physicians for providing care after 15 weeks, the Center for Reproductive Rights (& co.) is challenging:
- TRAP Licensing Scheme: a restrictive clinic licensing system that singles out abortion clinics for a series of unnecessary and unwarranted regulations that far exceed regulations applied to other clinics providing similar and even higher-risk medical care.
- 24-hour mandatory delay: a requirement that women delay their abortion 24 hours after receiving state-mandated information; Mississippi does not subject any other medical care to this requirement.
- Two-trip requirement: a requirement that a woman make two separate trips to and from the clinic before she can obtain an abortion; no other medical care is subject to this requirement in Mississippi.
- Physician only law: a requirement that only physicians provide abortion care, when evidence and experience demonstrate that other medical practitioners can safely provide this care, as they do in several other states.
- Telemedicine ban: a ban that applies only to physicians providing abortions that prohibits physicians from the use of telemedicine to provide consultations and treatment recommendations, including dispensing prescription medications, to patients; no other type of telemedicine consultations or treatments are subject to this prohibition in Mississippi.
- 15-Week Ban: a prohibition on abortions after 15 weeks that threatens physicians with civil penalties for providing that care.
The foundation for the multi-part challenge is a strong one: a recent Supreme Court decision limiting the burdens that can be placed on access to abortion.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 27, 2016 decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt was the most important decision on reproductive rights in a generation. The ruling reaffirmed a woman’s fundamental right to access abortion and declared that laws that impose burdens on the right without a countervailing benefit are simply unconstitutional.
In Whole Woman’s Health, the Center for Reproductive Rights challenged two provisions of the 2013 Texas law House Bill 2 (HB 2). The first provision required that all abortion providers obtain local hospital admitting privileges, a medically unnecessary mandate that forced the closure of more than half the clinics in the state. The second provision required every licensed abortion facility to meet the same hospital-like building standards as an ambulatory surgical center (ASC), which amounts to millions of dollars in medically unnecessary facility renovations.
This suit is critical for Mississippians and those from surrounding states who might also seek care at its sole surviving clinic. It is also important to nationwide efforts to push back on attempts to circumvent or secure negative precedent surrounding the Supreme Court’s protections.