The only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi, at the heart of the US Supreme Court’s historic abortion reversal, closed Wednesday, July 7.
The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, dubbed the “Pink House” for the color of its walls, carried out its final surgeries before a law banning all abortions in the impoverished state took effect Thursday. Southern Conservative.
“This is a very tough day for us and for Mississippi’s last abortion clinic,” tweeted the Pink House Fund, which collects donations to keep the facility running. “Today is our last day fighting against everything and providing abortions where no one else could or would. We are proud of the work done,” he added.
The clinic has, in spite of itself, gained international notoriety by being at the initiative of the legal proceedings which led, on June 24, to the decision of the Supreme Court to bury its Roe v Wade judgment which, since 1973, guaranteed the right of American women to have an abortion.
Abortion soon banned in half of the states
The establishment had indeed filed a complaint against a Mississippi law which reduced the legal deadlines for an abortion. The high court, deeply overhauled by Donald Trump, used this file to give each state the freedom to cancel or ban abortions on their soil. Thirteen states had anticipated this shift and passed laws designed to go into effect immediately.
The Mississippi law, adopted in 2007, is accompanied by penalties of up to ten years in prison in the event of an offense and provides for an exception only in the event of danger to the life of the mother, but not rape or of incest. The Pink House had asked local justice to block this law but the courts refused, leaving it no choice but to close.
Most neighboring states are equally hostile to abortion, so pregnant women in Mississippi not wishing to continue their pregnancies will have to resort to the abortion pill alone or travel hundreds of miles to have an abortion in Illinois.
Elsewhere in the country, several other establishments have closed. The Whole Woman’s Health group announced on Wednesday that it was closing its four clinics in Texas to open a new one in the neighboring state of New Mexico. Missouri’s only clinic in St. Louis, operated by Planned Parenthood, also ceased all procedures, as of June 23. Legal battles have delayed the deadline in Louisiana, for example, but eventually access to abortion should disappear in half of the American states.
