Inside the Mississippi abortion clinic that triggered Supreme Court ruling: ‘Everyone who kills babies deserves to die’

The Jackson Women’s Health Organization lost its case against the state, with the justices ruling to overturn ‘Roe vs Wade.’ The center, which has been targeted by pro-life protesters, must now close its doors. But it plans to reopen in New Mexico

Luis Pablo Beauregard
JUN 27, 2022

The Jackson Women’s Health Organization is known in the capital of Mississippi as the Pink House. Its fame reached new heights on Friday after it lost a Supreme Court against the state of Mississippi over its 2018 law that banned nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In a 6-3 ruling, the conservative-led court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in 1973.

The news – while expected – still came as a shock to Diane Derzis, the 68-year-old owner of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, who says she does not intend to give up. “Women have always had abortions. It has been an honor and a privilege to be here,” she said outside the clinic, before revealing that she plans to continue operating at the Pink House for 10 more days and then open a new clinic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, 1,600 kilometers (373 miles) from Jackson. Derzis, who has been providing reproductive health services to women for 46 years, intends to continue serving Mississippi patients at the new center.

Continued:https://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-06-27/inside-the-mississippi-abortion-clinic-that-triggered-supreme-court-ruling-everyone-who-kills-babies-deserves-to-die.html

The last abortion clinic in Mississippi only employs out-of-state doctors. Two are from Massachusetts.

By Hanna Krueger Globe Staff
Updated May 21, 2022

The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, known colloquially as the Pink House for its flamingo-colored stucco exterior, is the only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi.

It will almost certainly be the last.

Continued: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/05/21/nation/last-abortion-clinic-mississippi-only-employs-out-of-state-doctors-two-are-massachusetts/

2021 was pivotal year for abortion laws in America

A half century of abortion rights for American women faltered this year.

By Devin Dwyer
28 December 2021

For half a century, American women have had the right to choose to end a pregnancy at any point before a fetus is viable outside the womb. If 2021 saw that freedom start to crumble, 2022 could see it more widely wiped away.

"I think this is the time," said an anti-abortion rights activist from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who declined to share her name this fall while outside the state’s only remaining abortion clinic in Jackson.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/2021-pivotal-year-abortion-laws-america/story?id=81860784

The Mississippi clinic at the center of the fight to end abortion in America

The state’s last abortion clinic, known as the 'Pink House,’ is at the heart of a Supreme Court case that could severely restrict
abortion access for millions of largely poor women.

By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux and Ariana Eunjung Cha
Aug. 24, 2021

JACKSON, Miss. — The battle plays out in dueling soundtracks.

On one part of the sidewalk, longtime antiabortion demonstrator Coleman Boyd
belts out a steady stream of Christian music, with lyrics about Jesus’s love
for the unborn. “Your precious baby is going to be murdered in this place,”
Boyd, a physician, preaches between songs.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/mississippi-abortion-law/?itid=mr_4

USA – The New Pro-Abortion Generation

As Roe v. Wade faces its greatest challenge yet, young people are taking the reins to protect abortion access.

BY AMELIA POLLARD
AUGUST 5, 2021

Every day at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, resembles trench warfare. Painted like a shade of bubble gum, the center has affectionately earned the nickname the “Pink House.” But its modern windows and copper roof are shielded from the street. Black plastic tarps and panels guard patients’ privacy by keeping the protesters out of eyesight.

Around a dozen anti-abortion protesters often show up with bullhorns and picket signs, while volunteers for the Pinkhouse Defenders, a nonprofit organization, thwart hecklers by blasting music and escorting patients from their cars to the clinic’s waiting room. In the last several months, volunteers have embraced TikTok as their weapon of choice, filming protesters and posting the videos on social media.

Continued: https://prospect.org/justice/the-new-pro-abortion-generation/

Black activist wards off protesters so women can access Mississippi’s sole abortion clinic

Bracey Harris
Thu, June 10, 2021

JACKSON, Miss. — Asia Brown doesn't expect subtlety from the protesters who congregate outside the Jackson Women's Health Organization, always with the same goal in mind — to stop those heading inside from having abortions.

She watched this year as a woman with a license plate for one of the state's public universities pulled up to the pink-hued facility, the sole abortion clinic in the state.

Continued: https://www.yahoo.com/news/outside-mississippis-only-abortion-clinic-083019166.html

USA – The Fight to Protect Abortion Access Amid the Pandemic

The Fight to Protect Abortion Access Amid the Pandemic

Jordan Smith
June 15 2020

It wasn’t much past 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning in late April, and anti-choice protesters outside the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, were already cantankerous: There were three men with bullhorns, including one on top of a ladder; a 1,200-watt speaker pointing toward the clinic’s front door; and another protester blowing a shofar. “Welcome to the circus,” said Kim Gibson, a clinic escort who works to keep the mayhem away from patients.

Even as the coronavirus pandemic has gripped the nation (new cases are still on the rise in Mississippi), protesters disregarded Jackson’s stay-at-home order and have consistently failed to wear masks or keep appropriate social distance — not only from one another, but also from patients, whose cars they readily approach in an effort to “counsel” them and hand out anti-abortion propaganda.

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2020/06/15/coronavirus-pandemic-abortion-acces

15.06.2020

Commentary

Featured

abortion access during pandemic

abortion is essential healthcare

anti-choice abuse

anti-choice harassment

anti-choice hatred

anti-choice intimidation

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice protesters

anti-choice restrictions

anti-choice violence

Coleman Boyd

Covid-19 and abortion

Derenda Hancock

Greg Abbott

Hope Medical Group for Women

Jackson Women’s Health Organization

National Abortion Federation

Pink House Defenders

Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas

Sarah Wheat

the Pink House

trust women

Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale

Abortion in the south: The ‘escorts’ who ward off protesters at Mississippi’s lone clinic

Abortion in the south: The 'escorts' who ward off protesters at Mississippi's lone clinic
‘Clinic escorts’ create a buffer between protesters and women arriving at the clinic as its role becomes ever more important

by Khushbu Shah in Jackson, Mississippi
Tue 13 Aug 2019

Kim Gibson wore a pastel rainbow-striped vest with the words “clinic escort” in bold, black letters as she glanced over at the arriving white van. She was irritated by the sudden appearance in Jackson of more Christian anti-abortion protesters in front of Mississippi’s lone abortion clinic.

She watched as the vehicle pulled up, letting out two sisters. They dropped picket signs onto the Jackson sidewalk before their mother drove off to park. When she walked back with her teenage son, Gibson yelled: “Shame what you do to these children. Shame, shame, shame.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/13/mississippi-lone-abortion-clinic