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/

How Mississippi ended up with one abortion clinic and why it matters

The story of abortion access in the state helps explain why some legal experts believe the U.S. may be on the brink of overturning Roe v. Wade

By Caroline Kitchener and Casey Parks
Nov 30, 2021

When the abortion doctor lost his medical license in 2004, Nancy Atkins wasn’t sure how she could keep going. Malachy DeHenre had been the only doctor at the clinic Atkins owned in Jackson, Miss. Recruiting OB/GYNs to perform abortions anywhere was difficult, but in Mississippi, Atkins had learned, it was nearly impossible. The state had the toughest regulations and the most ardent antiabortion protesters. One activist even regularly told people that killing an abortion provider might count as “justifiable homicide.”

Seventeen years later, Atkins isn’t surprised that her state is the one that some legal observers believe is poised to overturn or seriously undermine Roe v. Wade. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to Mississippi’s law banning most abortions after 15 weeks. Roe protects a person’s constitutional right to abortion before viability, usually around 22 to 24 weeks.

The last abortion clinic in Mississippi is at the center of a Supreme Court case that could end Roe v. Wade

If the Supreme Court upholds Mississippi’s 15-week ban, the decision would almost certainly weaken Roe v. Wade. In Mississippi and beyond, the impact would be tremendous.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
November 22, 2021

JACKSON, MS — The Pink House wasn’t Tiara’s first choice. It wasn’t even her second. But it was one of the only places that could help her.

Tiara, who withheld her full name for privacy, lives in Beaumont, Texas. She and her husband have three children: a 2-year-old and 1-year-old twins. She works and is in charge of the majority of parenting duties with her kids.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2021/11/abortion-clinic-mississippi-supreme-court/

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/

Mississippi asks Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in upcoming case

By Robert Barnes
July 22, 2021

Mississippi is asking the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade in order to uphold the state’s restrictions on abortion access, and to renounce the court’s landmark holding a half-century ago that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to obtain an abortion.

The state’s bold request is in a brief filed Thursday that seeks to persuade the court it should approve a law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, far earlier than now allowed.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/mississippi-abortion-supreme-court-roe-v-wade/2021/07/22/9b30cb8a-eb23-11eb-97a0-a09d10181e36_story.html

We’re Mississippi’s Last Abortion Clinic, and We’re Braced for the Worst

June 9, 2021
By Shannon Brewer

JACKSON, Miss. — I could see the pain on the patient’s face as soon as she walked through the door of the abortion clinic where I work. She was unbearably sick from pregnancy complications and had been in and out of the hospital for weeks. She had just driven almost 200 miles to reach us because there are so few abortion clinics in the South. Like most of the patients who come through my clinic, she thought she’d be able to get an abortion that day.

I had to tell her that under Mississippi law, patients like her cannot get an abortion on their first visit to a clinic. Instead, they have to sit through state-mandated “counseling” — visits that can take several hours. Then they have to come back another day to get the pills for their medication abortion or have their procedure. Often, patients are not able to make that second appointment until the following week or later because we’re booked up or because they can’t make arrangements for child care or get time off work again.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/opinion/abortion-mississippi-supreme-court.html

Mississippi’s ‘Pink House’ ground zero in U.S. abortion rights fight

Gabriella Borter, Reuters
May 23, 2021

JACKSON — For eight years, Derenda Hancock has ushered women from their cars to the doors of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, donning a rainbow vest as she shields them from protesters waving religious pamphlets and shouting “turn back!” through bullhorns.

Hancock, a 62-year-old part-time waitress, grew accustomed to repeated attempts by lawmakers and anti-abortion activists to block access to abortions at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization where she leads the clinic’s volunteer escorts.

Continued: https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/crime-pmn/mississippis-pink-house-ground-zero-in-u-s-abortion-rights-fight

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