Closing of the clinic at the heart of the reversal of the Supreme Court on abortion
Mississippi's only abortion clinic, nicknamed the “Pink House”, has officially closed.
The only abortion clinic in the The state of Mississippi, at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court's historic about-face on abortion, closed for good on Wednesday.
The Jackson Women's Health Organization, dubbed the Pink House for the color of its walls, carried out its last surgeries before a law went into effect on Thursday banning all abortions in this impoverished, conservative southern state.
This is a very tough day for us and for the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, tweeted the Pink House Fund, which collects donations to keep the institution running.
It's our last day fighting against everything and providing abortions where no one else could or would. We are proud of the work accomplished, he added.
The clinic has, despite itself, gained international notoriety by launching the legal proceedings that led, on June 24, to on the Supreme Court's decision to bury Roe v. Wade who, since 1973, guaranteed the right of American women to have an abortion.
The clinic had installed signs to protect the anonymity of women wishing to have an abortion.
The establishment had indeed filed a complaint against a Mississippi law which reduced the legal deadlines for an abortion. The high court, deeply overhauled by Donald Trump, used this case to give each state the freedom to limit or ban abortions on its soil.
Thirteen states anticipated this change and passed laws designed to go into effect immediately.
Mississippi's, passed as early as 2007, carries penalties of up to ten years imprisonment for an offense and only provides an exception in case of danger to the life of the mother, but not rape or incest.
The Pink House had asked local justice to block this law, but the courts refused, leaving it no choice but to close.
Most states neighbors are equally anti-abortion, so pregnant women in Mississippi who don't want to continue their pregnancies will have to resort to the abortion pill alone or travel hundreds of miles to have an abortion in Illinois.
< p class="e-p"> Elsewhere in the country, several other establishments have closed. The Whole Woman's Health group announced on Wednesday that it was closing its four clinics in Texas to open a new one in the neighboring state of New Mexico.
Missouri's only clinic in St. Louis, operated by the Planned Parenthood organization, also ceased all proceedings on June 23.
Legal battles delayed the deadline in Louisiana, for example, but, eventually, access to abortion should disappear in half of the American states.
