JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s only abortion clinic is not likely to close immediately because of a law that puts new restrictions on it, the state said in court papers filed to defend the law.
Jackson Women’s Health Organization filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking to block the law, which requires anyone doing abortions at the clinic to be an OB-GYN with privileges to admit patients to a local hospital.
The clinic is asking U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan to issue a temporary restraining order to block the law from taking effect Sunday, as scheduled.
Assistant attorneys general responded Thursday on behalf of the state health officer, Dr. Mary Currier. They said the judge should deny the restraining order because under another state law, “the Department of Health cannot revoke their license or shut them down within the next 10 days.”
The state attorneys said if a health facility is found not complying with a law, it has at least 30 days for an administrative hearing. If a license is revoked at the hearing, the facility would get 30 days to appeal that decision.
“Thus, the immediate concern that the clinic may be closed on July 1 is ill-founded,” the state attorneys wrote.
As of late Thursday, court records showed Jordan had not scheduled a hearing to consider the arguments for a temporary restraining order.
A Health Department spokeswoman has said the department intends to inspect Jackson Women’s Health Organization on Monday, the first day state government offices and the clinic are open after the new law kicks in.
The clinic argues in the lawsuit that the law will effectively ban abortion in the state and endanger women’s health by limiting access to the procedure. It argued that the law is unconstitutional and would close the clinic “by imposing medically unjustified requirements on physicians who perform abortions.”
The clinic said the unjustified requirement in the law is that it requires anyone who performs an abortion at a clinic to be an OB-GYN with privileges to admit patients to a local hospital. Lawmakers said that is for patients’ safety. The lawsuit says it’s impossible for the clinic’s physicians to get those privileges by Sunday.
The privileges can be difficult to obtain, either because doctors live out of state or because religious-affiliated hospitals don’t grant them to doctors who do abortions.
The sponsor of the new law is House Public Health Committee Chairman Sam Mims, R-McComb. He sent a letter to Currier last week saying he wants the Health Department to immediately enforce the new restrictions on the abortion clinic.
The clinic cites Mims’ letter in its lawsuit, saying elected officials had subjected the Health Department to “extraordinary political pressure” to enforce the law quickly to block the clinic from performing abortions.
Republican Gov. Phil Bryant has said his goal is to eliminate abortions in the state, and on Wednesday he said “Mississippi stands ready to vigorously defend House Bill 1390,” the new law.
When he signed the bill, Bryant responded to what effect the law could have on the state’s only abortion clinic by saying, “If it closes that clinic, then so be it.”
