"War on Women" Takes Its Toll: Mississippi's Last Abortion Clinic Under Threat

[marmar]

"War on Women" Takes Its Toll: Mississippi's Last Abortion Clinic Under Threat


The nationwide assault on reproductive and abortion rights that effects everyone with sexual health needs (so, that's everyone, pretty much!) and has come to be known as "The War on Women" may claim its first state as a victim soon. In Mississippi, the final abortion clinic left is fighting for its survival. Bloomberg reports:

Beginning July 1, all abortion-clinic physicians must have admitting privileges at a local hospital under a law passed by the Republican-led Legislature and signed by Republican Governor Phil Bryant in April. At the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state’s sole remaining clinic providing elective abortions, none of the three physicians who perform the procedure has been granted those privileges.

Mississippi may become the first U.S. state without a dedicated abortion clinic if the Jackson facility fails to come into compliance. That would mark the most visible victory for the anti-abortion movement, which has fought to abolish the procedure in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to have one.

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The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/990854/%22war_on_women%22_takes_its_toll%3A_mississippi%27s_last_abortion_clinic_under_threat/

[xchrom]

1. That's how 'they're' winning...1 clinic at a time.

1 regulation at a time, 1 ordinance at a time.

[glowing]

2. Abortions remain legal, however, when there are no clinics to perform them, then

its not really possible to legally engage in a right...

Could you imagine if they imposed so much regulation around the male anatomy? If men had babies, they would have fully funded clinics on every corner, a yr off of pd leave after having a baby, and they would insist on taking the week of their menstrual flow off....

It's way past the time that congress and the Senate have at least 50% female attendance (we actually have like 51% female's vs male in this country).

[SnowCritter]

4. They - the anti-choice crowd - can't win without the support of women

and that's the problem.

As you pointed out, approximately 51% of the population is women. So, if this were to be decided on a strictly gender basis and all women were pro-choice, then, well, the math is obvious. I see the problem as one of religion, because it seems all the arguments from the right against abortion have a religious base. It's ironic - it's been my observation that the folks on the right are always complaining about having some policy that they're against "rammed down their throats", but they don't have the slightest problem ramming their policies down someone else's throats.

As an aside, the "if men had babies" argument is preposterous. If a three-legged stool had four legs, it wouldn't be a three-legged stool. If men could have babies, they wouldn't be men.

[Stargazer09]

5. I've known a lot of anti-choice women

They honestly don't care about the health of other women. One told me that she'd rather die than have an abortion, and she expects other women to feel the same way.

It's sickening.

[ljm2002]

7. Yep.

Women are not a unified force in this matter anymore, because too many women see those who seek abortions as "sluts", or "ignorant", or actual "murderers".

Women of child-bearing age at this time, never lived through the time when their sisters and cousins and mothers and aunts died from back-alley abortions; and we have all been subjected for the last 30 years or more to an onslaught of propaganda making fetuses into cute, cuddly babies from the moment they are conceived, and trying to present that a fertilized egg has the same rights as you or me.

The fact is, fetuses go through a long developmental stage that recaps evolution in many ways. For example, there is a stage at which fetuses actually have gills. Show me a citizen with gills, please.

Anyway, even the Bible does not prohibit abortions, and it does not consider fetuses as individuals. Look up the laws noted in the Bible, where a man is fined if he causes the death of a fetus by harming the woman. No indication of the old "eye for an eye" justice there -- i.e., it is not considered murder.

Women nowadays don't realize how close to the precipice we are. Once we fall off, it will be back to the coat hangers, as young women who can't tell anyone they're pregnant wait until the later stages, and then seek assistance from unscrupulous and illegal abortionists. Then the cycle will start all over again -- people will again have personal experience of those near and dear to them dying or becoming permanently sterile due to barbaric abortion methods.

To me, the question is a very simple one: what is more tragic, the death of a fully-developed woman (or sometimes girl), vs. the death of a fetus, even one that is pretty far along? It seems obvious to me. Because of the nature of how reproduction works, this decision MUST be left up to the woman who is pregnant, and she MUST have the choice to abort, regardless of medical circumstances. We as individuals may not agree with another individual's choice to abort, but it is not our decision to make. I will say, I am okay with the state having some say in the very late stages, but the choice to abort must still be there, given the various medical risks that can occur endangering the life of the mother right up to the end of a pregnancy.

Of course one more thing, this will not stop at abortion clinics. As we here at DU are aware, there is an ongoing assault on the right to practice birth control as well. Egad, the current political climate scares me these days.

[Le Taz Hot]

3. As one of many who fought for a

woman's right to choose, this is beyond distressing. And there's no legal recourse with our 5-person conservative sycophant Supreme Court. Those old enough to remember when abortion was illegal know what happens next.

At this point it will be imperative for pro-choice women in Mississippi to organize and facilitate FREE rides to the nearest out-of-state facility for women who want abortions.

[KakistocracyHater]

6. quit using ABORTION CLINIC! it is a women's health clinic!

Jackson Women’s Health Organization<------ THIS is what you call it, QUIT USING RW MEME!