Judge could decide whether Mississippi will become 'abortion-free'

A federal judge’s ruling on Wednesday could shutter the only remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi, a major reproductive-rights battleground state where abortions are increasingly rare and teenage pregnancies are 60 percent more common than the national average.

Federal District Judge Daniel Jordan is hearing arguments and possibly ruling on whether to extend a temporary restraining order on a new state law, slated to have gone into effect on July 1, that requires more-advanced clinical certification for abortion-clinic nurses – something that some members of the clinic staff at this point do not have.

After Gov. Phil Bryant (R) publicly stated he’s in favor of an “abortion-free” state, the new abortion-clinic law is shaping up as a major test of a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that says states can regulate abortion clinics as long as they don’t put undue burdens on the rights of women. In that case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court defined undue burden as having "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus."

In the decision, the Supreme Court left it to lower courts to set the bar for what constitutes “a substantial obstacle,” meaning that a ruling in the Mississippi abortion-clinic case could become part of “a road map for how to close abortion clinics in other states,” says Philip Thomas, an attorney who blogs at Mississippi Litigation Review Blog.   

“This is extremely important to the anti-abortion forces,” adds George Cochran, a law professor at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. “They sincerely believe in the constitutionality of this law. But the fact is the state has a heavy burden here, especially in the context where the governor and other state officials have said the amendment is designed to rid the state of any abortion clinic.”

The clinic filed a lawsuit June 27, seeking to stop enforcement of the law. It argues that the law's requirement – that anyone performing an abortion must have the credentials to admit patients to a local hospital – is medically unnecessary and that the law would create “irreparable harm” by forcing the clinic to close. To rule in the clinic’s favor and maintain the restraining order, Judge Jordan will also have to be convinced that the clinic’s case is legally sound and could actually prevail if the matter goes to court.

The clinic in question, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, opened in 1996 and performs about 2,000 abortions a year. 

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