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Abortion Battles: Mississippi Appeals Blocked Abortion Law to US Supreme Court (picture)

Wednesday, February 25, 2015 16:04
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ississippi is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let it enforce an abortion law that had been declared unconstitutional by a lower court.

In papers filed Wednesday, state Attorney General Jim Hood asked the nation’s highest court to overturn a ruling handed down last year by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed a law in 2012 requiring physicians at the only abortion clinic in Mississippi to obtain privileges to admit patients to a nearby hospital.

The law is similar to one enacted in several other states. Supporters say such laws protect women’s health, but opponents say complications are rare and hospitals are already required to admit emergency patients.

The only abortion clinic in Mississippi, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, sued to block the law in 2012. A federal district judge let the law take effect but stopped the state from closing the clinic while physicians there applied for admitting privileges at Jackson-area hospitals.

Clinic owner Diane Derzis has said the clinic’s physicians, who travel from other states, have been unable to obtain privileges. Some hospitals won’t grant them to out-of-state doctors, and some religious-affiliated hospitals won’t associate with physicians who work at abortion clinics.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that the law could block access in Mississippi to a constitutionally protected procedure by closing the state’s only abortion clinic.

In his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Hood wrote that the 5th Circuit decision “effectively places the clinic beyond the regulatory reach of the state.”

Hood, a Democrat, also wrote: “Mississippi was one of many states to enact an admitting privileges requirement for abortion doctors, but there are two important distinctions in Mississippi: for several years Mississippi had already required doctors performing outpatient procedures other than abortion to hold admitting privileges, and Mississippi currently has only one licensed abortion clinic, which complains that it cannot comply with a rational health and safety regulation.”morehere

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