Appeals court keeps block on Mississippi 6-week abortion ban
Posted February 20, 2020 5:39 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
JACKSON, Miss. — A federal appeals court is keeping a block on a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions at about six weeks — a stage when many women may not even know they are pregnant.
A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made the decision Thursday, agreeing with a district court judge who blocked it from taking effect in 2019, soon after it was signed by then-Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican.
The only abortion clinic in Mississippi sued the state after Bryant signed what would have been one of the strictest abortion laws in the U.S., banning most abortions once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which is about six weeks. The clinic said it provides abortions until 16 weeks.
With the addition of conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years, several states have been enacting laws aimed at spurring court challenges that could eventually seek to overturn the court’s 1973 abortion rights ruling in Roe v. Wade.
Thursday’s decision was the second time in recent months that the conservative 5th Circuit has blocked a Mississippi abortion law. In December, the court kept a block on a 2018 Mississippi law that would have banned most abortions at 15 weeks.
“This is now the second time in two months the 5th Circuit has told Mississippi that it cannot ban abortion,” Hillary Schneller, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement Thursday. “Despite the relentless attempts of Mississippi and other states, the right to legal abortion remains the law of the land.”
Emily Wagster Pettus, The Associated Press
