Mississippi’s Only Abortion Clinic Will Remain Open, Thanks to Anti-Choicers’ Big Mouths
Mississippi currently boasts but a single abortion clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Only three doctors perform abortions there, and two of those doctors live out of state because people in Mississippi can’t resist the urge to act like assholes to them. Earlier this year, an overwhelmingly Republican state legislature passed a law that would have required that abortions only be performed by board certified OB-GYNs and that all doctors performing abortions in the state have admitting privileges to local hospitals. The first provision of the law wasn’t a problem; each of the doctors at JWHO are board certified. But the second provision gets tricky — even though the health center has an agreement with a local hospital that will allow patients to be admitted if they experience complications, two of the doctors at JWHO don’t have admitting privileges because hospitals don’t typically grant them to out of state doctors. Even so, complications at the clinic are few and far between; since clinic owner Diane Derzis acquired the clinic in 2010, no women have left the clinic in an ambulance.
