07 Jul Jackson Women’s Health Organization Files Petition with MS Supreme Court to Allow Abortion Clinic to Reopen

Posted at July 07, 2022 in Press Release by

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 7, 2022

Contact: Carolyn Clendenin, comms-mcj@rabengroup.com, 347-869-7382

Jackson Women’s Health Organization Files Petition with MS Supreme Court to Allow Abortion Clinic to Reopen

The MS Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that abortion is a right under the MS Constitution

Today, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization filed a petition in the Mississippi Supreme Court asking it to take steps to allow JWHO’s Clinic to re-open next week and to suspend enforcement of Mississippi’s Trigger Ban and Six-Week Ban regarding abortion. The petition is being filed on the Clinic’s behalf by the Mississippi Center for Justice (MCJ), the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), and the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

One of the Clinic’s attorneys, Rob McDuff of the Mississippi Center for Justice, made the following statement: “Earlier this week, a chancery court judge denied our request to block the state’s Trigger Ban, and it took effect today, outlawing all abortions in Mississippi except in rare circumstances. While the clinic has been forced to stop scheduling patients and providing abortions, we are asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to block that ban and the related Six-Week Ban and let the clinic reopen as soon as possible. We are doing all we can to allow the clinic to keep serving patients. We hope the Mississippi Supreme Court will abide by its prior ruling that the Mississippi Constitution protects the rights of women to make their own decisions in matters of childbirth. But unfortunately, we live in a time when settled rules of law are being cast aside. We hope that doesn’t happen here.”

 

Vangela M. Wade, president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Justice, stated: “We are simply asking the MS Supreme Court to uphold its own ruling. It would be a mistake to reverse decades of precedent and allow government and politics to override a woman’s right to make health decisions directly impacting her life.”