JACKSON - A federal judge has effectively prohibited the state of Mississippi from limiting access to early second-trimester abortions, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights says.
CRR staff attorney Bonnie Scott Jones said Wednesday a 2004 law struck down by U.S. District Judge Tom S. Lee this week "was just another example of anti-choice politicians professing to protect women's health while relentlessly passing legislation that cuts off their access to health care services."
The 2004 law, which repeals June 30, would have required patients to go to hospitals or outpatient surgical facilities for early second-trimester abortions.
Lee had temporarily stopped the law from taking effect on July 1, 2004, and declared it unconstitutional in a ruling made public Wednesday.
The state said a new law on July 1 would make it likely that Jackson Women's Health Organization, Mississippi's only abortion clinic, could qualify to continue with the early second-trimester abortions. The state said there was no need for Lee to do anything.
Lee, however, said if he did nothing, women in Mississippi would not have access to early second-trimester abortions until the 2004 law repealed and the new one took effect. That would be 30 days. That lack of access, Lee said, "is unconstitutional as a matter of law."
Jones said it was not clear what was going to happen with the new law - if there will be a legal challenge or if Jackson Women's Health Organization could comply with it.
"We know we are not going to have again the situation as we did in this law which effectively banned early second trimester abortions. That was struck down," Jones said.
The state contended the 2004 law was enacted to move early second-trimester abortions from abortion clinics to facilities better equipped to ensure the safety of patients.
The law barred abortions at abortion clinics starting at 13 weeks' gestation. Previously, abortions were allowed at the clinics at up to 16 weeks' gestation.
The Jackson Women's Health Organization and the Center for Reproductive Rights sued last year.
Lee, in an order signed May 31, said the 2004 law was enacted "for reasons wholly unrelated to any actual safety or health concerns."
He said the state knew no abortion clinic was licensed as a hospital or ambulatory surgery facility. He said there was no licensed ambulatory surgical facility or private hospital in Mississippi that performed abortions, and public hospitals could perform abortions only in extremely limited circumstances.
Lee said the state's action made abortions "effectively unavailable in the state of Mississippi beyond the first trimester."
Assistant Attorney General Jacob Ray said Wednesday that the attorney general's office will ask Lee to reconsider his decision.
Ray said the attorney general's office had repeatedly argued in court documents that the law was constitutional and met the objective of protecting the safety and health of Mississippi women seeking abortions.
The case had been set for trial this coming August.
Susan Hill, Jackson Women's Health Organization's president and CEO, said the clinic believed it had a good case.
"I'm not sure what the state of Mississippi is going to do, but we're prepared for whatever else we have to do," Hill said in a telephone interview from the group's corporate office in Raleigh, N.C.
"We saw this an attempt to limit abortion in Mississippi and to drive the only remaining clinic out," she said.
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