Abortion options fade in South

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http://www.salon.com/2012/04/12/abortion_options_fade_in_south/

The New Woman All Women abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., survived a 1998 bombing, though Eric Rudolph’s terrorist attack took the life of a security guard and seriously injured a nurse. In Mississippi, Jackson Women’s Health is the last abortion clinic standing in the entire state. But both clinics, which share an owner, will likely soon close their doors – not by dint of violence, but by legislation, regulations and enforcement explicitly designed to shut them down.

Last week, Diane Derzis, who owns both clinics and several others, signed a consent order by the Alabama State Board of Health relinquishing New Woman All Women’s license to perform abortions by May 18. Any entity that might take on the license “must agree that it or he/she will not employ Diane Derzis” or another unnamed employee. Antiabortion activists celebrated, calling the clinic a “very dark and deadly place,” though the vast majority of the violations cited in the Board of Health’s report concerned record keeping and legibility of reports.

And any day now, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is expected to sign into law a bill that would require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Derzis told the press that would likely shut down the Jackson clinic. Only one of the three doctors who perform abortions at her clinic has such privileges, and hospitals commonly refuse to admit abortion providers. That was the goal: As Bryant said of the legislation, “As governor, I will continue to work to make Mississippi abortion-free.” Derzis vowed to challenge the law in court.

Derzis is no shrinking violet. She once jokingly said that her fellow clinic workers think “I’m such a hard bitch.” She was said to carry a Beretta to work (not unreasonable given two doctors she’d worked with have been murdered), and earned the nickname the “abortion queen.” But she didn’t respond to Salon’s repeated requests for comment on the pending closures, and an employee at the Birmingham clinic said Wednesday that Derzis wasn’t speaking to the media.

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