More South and Midwestern states approve ban on "heartbeat" abortion

If a new Mississippi law survives a court challenge, it will be nearly impossible for most pregnant women to have an abortion on the spot.

Or, potentially, in neighboring Louisiana. Or in Alabama. Or Georgia.

The Legislative Assembly of Louisiana is in the process of enacting legislation – such as the laws promulgated in the states of Mississippi and Georgia – that will prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, approximately six weeks after early pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant. Alabama is about to approve an even more restrictive bill.

State governments are on the verge of virtually eliminating access to abortion in large areas of the Great South and Midwest. Ohio and Kentucky have also adopted heart rate laws; The Missouri legislature controlled by the Republicans is considering one.

Their hope is that an American Supreme Court, more conservative, approves, which means the end of the constitutional right to abortion.

"For life professionals, these are huge victories," said Sue Liebel, state director for Susan B. Anthony List, an advocacy group for victims of abortion. "And I think they are indicative of the momentum, excitement, and hope that spur changes at the Supreme Court and the presence of such a pro president." -life."

For advocates of the right to abortion, the trend is worrying. Diane Derzis, owner of the only Mississippi abortion clinic, the Jackson Women's Health Organization: "I think it's certainly more serious than ever." They smell the blood and it's all right. that's why they do it. "

Mississippi is already imposing a 24-hour wait between in-person consultation. This means that women must make at least two trips to their clinic, often over long distances.

Other states have recently passed similar and progressive laws restricting abortion. In addition to Mississippi, five states have only one clinic: Kentucky, Missouri, North and South Dakota and West Virginia. But the latest efforts to ban the procedure represent the biggest infringement of abortion rights in decades.

Legislators who sponsor the bans have made it clear that their goal is to spark court challenges in the hope of ultimately overturning the Roe v. Wade of 1973 legalizing abortion.

These challenges have begun. Derzis' lawyers are scheduled to appear before a judge on May 21, to prevent the Mississippi law from taking effect July 1.

A Kentucky judge blocked the state's ban on heartbeat after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint on behalf of the Louisville clinic.

Similar legal actions are expected before bans can come into effect in Ohio and Georgia, where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the latest heartbeat bill on Tuesday. Kemp said that he had welcomed the fight by swearing: "We will not back down".

The ban on Georgia only comes into effect on January 1st. But the impact was immediate.

An abortion clinic run by Atlanta's women's centers began receiving anxious patient calls soon after Kemp signed the law. Many callers had planned to travel from outside the state to have an abortion. Georgia's banning of heartbeats would have a wider impact as the state has 17 abortion clinics, more than the combined total of the other four southern states that have adopted or are planning a ban.

"On a typical day, we will see people from North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina – throughout the region," said Dr. Lisa Haddad, Director Medical Clinic of Atlanta. "And my thought is that we will not see these people coming here because they think it's already illegal in Georgia."

Dr. Ernest Marshall, co-founder of Kentucky's latest abortion clinic in Louisville, said in an email that it would ban abortions before most women would realize their pregnancy would have occurred a disproportionate impact on poor women and communities of color in the South ".

Abortion rights advocates are waiting for judges to put an end to the application of any new prohibition while prosecutions end up in court. It could take years.

"These laws are patently unconstitutional," said Elisabeth Smith, chief advocate for state policy and advocacy with the Center for Reproductive Rights, who also initiated a lawsuit to ban the Mississippi. "But if they were allowed to come into force, they would have devastating consequences for the residents of all those states."

If the heartbeat bans were respected, many poor women with little means to travel would have little choice but to try to end their pregnancy, a- he said, possibly using drugs for abortion purchased online.

Others would have to drive or fly over several states, said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that defends the right to abortion.

"People would go to Florida, people would go on to Memphis," Nash said. "How many states do you have to go through before you can access abortion services? This exacerbates all the problems we've seen before regarding being away from work and having access to the services you need." 39, money needed to travel. "

The proposed heartbeat bans have not been passed this year in several Republican states, including Texas. GOP deputies lost ground against the Democrats in the 2018 elections, and some abortionists were suspicious after the courts overturned earlier abortion restrictions in the United States. State. These efforts have also failed in Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Alabama lawmakers have postponed until next week a vote on a proposal that would make the practice of almost all abortions a crime. The measure was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate suspended debate Thursday amid a heated debate over the desirability of removing the exemptions for rape and incest from the bill.

"You can not put a price on unborn life," said Wednesday Eric Johnston, president of the Alabama Pro-Life coalition, while a legislative committee had heard testimony on the ban proposed by l & # 39; State. "What you need to do is protect people who live in this state, including unborn children."

But Jenna King-Shepherd told lawmakers in Alabama that she was confident that the abortion she had suffered at the age of 17 had allowed her to finish her studies. She said that her father, a part-time Baptist preacher furious with her pregnancy, had taken her to the abortion clinic because he had trusted her to make the right choice.

"I'm not asking you to support access to abortion," said King-Shepherd. "I'm just asking you to let women, their families, their doctors, and their gods decide how they want to start their families privately and trust them."

–Ross Bynum