JACKSON, Miss. (Special) – The last abortion clinic in Mississippi has packed up and is moving on after being shuttered by a trigger law that went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 reversed its controversial 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the U.S.
Diane Derzis, owner of the now-defunct Jackson Women’s Health Organization, told Associated Press July 18 the building that housed the clinic on North State Street in Jackson has been cleared out and sold.
She had previously warned if Mississippi’s 2007 trigger law ever went into effect she would move the clinic to New Mexico, one of the states not expected to take any action to forbid abortions after the Supreme Court ruling.
The clinic was the focal point of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Mississippi case that the Supreme Court used to overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion nationwide. Dobbs, the State Health Officer at the Mississippi Department of Health, recently announced his retirement.
In the wake of the clinic closing, billboard appeals have sprung up around Mississippi announcing that women considering abortion still have a “choice.”
Olivia Raisner, co-founder of Mayday Health, which bills itself as a health education nonprofit, told WLBT-TV in Jackson, “…you can ban abortion clinics but you can’t ban information, and that’s where Mayday comes in.”
A search for the headquarters location of Mayday Health was unsuccessful. The group advocates medication abortion, which requires a pregnant woman to ingest pills containing toxic chemicals that kill and expel the developing baby from the mother’s womb. The process is often described as an “at-home abortion.”
The group advises women on how to get around state-by-state laws that prohibit medication abortions.
