esseff44 wrote:
I was checking Sunday during the day. Your midnight is my 2:00 am. Is there any organizing going on to assist women go to other states if the injunction is lifted? Is the clinic still open for the time being? How strong was the support for the legislation? How organized is the opposition?
The clinic is still open, and apparently busier last week than usual. They attributed the increase to women who were trying to beat the deadline for the Health Dept. inspection that would shut the clinic down.
Support for abortion laws doesn't change much from one law to the next...with the exception of the idiotic personhood amendment that was soundly defeated last year. 60-70% approval is about average for any law involving denying women their right to an abortion.
Opposition to the law or the injunction? We have the usual cadre of nutballs camped out in front of the clinic which is just a couple of miles from me so I see them fairly often on the sidewalk.
This is the only clinic in the state and they use 2 out-of-state doctors who come in 3 or 4 days a week but don't live in MS. The new law says they must have admitting priviedges at a hospital, but the anti- group has threatened to picket any hospital that extends priviledges. The hospitals are scared shitless of that. Fortunately, the judge seems to agree there is no medical reason for that and recognizes that the clinic have doctors who DO have priviedges who admit patients if necessary (so far, 0 cases of that happening) even though they don't perform the abortions themselves. Also, private physicians who perform fewer than (I think) 10 abortions a month are not covered under the law.
Our idiot Gov has announced publicly that the specific reason for the law was to cease all abortions in the state and that is apparently weighing heavily on the judge's decision. I'm expecting the injunction to be extended and the pols to scurry around making all sorts of noise and looking for ways to change the laws so we can do this all over again next year.