MISSISSIPPI
Political control: Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and leaders of the Republican-controlled Mississippi Legislature have been working for years to chip away at abortion access.
Background: Mississippi already had a law banning most abortions at 20 weeks, although the state’s lone abortion clinic offered the procedure only through 16 weeks. The state tried to enact a law in 2018 to ban most abortions after 15 weeks. That law is the basis for the case that the Supreme Court has now used to overturn Roe v. Wade. A federal district judge blocked Mississippi’s 15-week law from taking effect in 2018, and an appeals court agreed. The Supreme Court agreed to take the case in 2021. Justices heard arguments in December, with the Mississippi attorney general’s office saying the court should overturn Roe v. Wade. Mississippi has one abortion clinic, and it stops offering abortions at 16 weeks. Reeves was lieutenant governor in 2018, when Mississippi tried to enact the 15-week ban, and in 2019, when the state tried to enact a six-week ban. Mississippi law does not allow providers to dispense abortion medications through telemedicine consultations.
Effect of Supreme Court ruling: Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is expected to close by early July unless a judge blocks a trigger law. The clinic filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the 2007 law that bans most abortions if Roe v. Wade is overturned. That law is set to take effect July 7. Abortions still would be allowed if the woman’s life is endangered by the pregnancy or if the pregnancy was caused by a rape that was reported to law enforcement. Any person who knowingly performs or attempts to induce an abortion, except the pregnant woman, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.
What’s next: Mississippi’s 2007 law says the state attorney general must publish a notice in a state administrative bulletin after the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Mississippi’s ban on most abortions will take effect 10 days after that publication.
