A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Mississippi’s new state law to ban abortions after 15 weeks, less than a day after it was signed into law by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant.
Judge Carlton W. Reeves, with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, issued the temporary restraining order Tuesday. The state’s only abortion clinic, called Jackson Women’s Health Organization, sought the temporary order as part of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new law.
Reeves, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, said in his order that the law “threatens immediate, irreparable harm to Mississippians’ abilities to control their ‘destiny and … body.’”
He also said that it is likely the abortion clinic will succeed in challenging the law.
