Anti-abortion doctors ask Mississippi Supreme Court to overturn 1998 ruling
In a 1998 ruling in Pro Choice Mississippi v. Fordice, the state high court said the state constitution provides Mississippians a right to abortion.
Late last year, a Hinds County judge ruled members of AAPLOG did not have standing to pursue a lawsuit to overturn the 1998 decision because they have not been harmed by the court ruling. AAPLOG, represented by new public interest law firm American Dream Legal, is appealing that ruling, and asking the state Supreme Court to 'clarify whether Mississippi considers elective abortion a crime or a constitutional right,' according to a press release.
Based on another Mississippi case, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the decades old Roe v. Wade right to abortion via the U.S. Constitution. The Mississippi Legislature has passed laws that prohibit most all abortions in the state and there are no clinics in Mississippi offering abortions.
But the 1998 state Supreme Court decision holding that the state constitution provides a right to abortion has never been overturned and remains on the books.
American Dream Legal in a statement said Mississippi's criminal ban on abortion conflicts with the Fordice decision, and this has AAPLOG physicians 'caught between conflicting legal duties: refer patients and risk prosecution under state law — or refuse to refer and risk professional ruin.'
'The people of Mississippi enacted a law that protected unborn life and took down the U.S. Supreme Court's abuse of judicial authority in Roe v. Wade,' said Aaron Rice, attorney for AAPLOG and CEO of American Dream Legal. 'It is only fitting that we likewise put an end to efforts by the courts in our own state to impose abortion by judicial fiat.'
In the Hinds County case, both the state, through Attorney General Lynn Fitch, and pro-abortion rights supporters argued that the doctors did not have standing. It's unclear whether the high court will hear the appeal. In recent years, the state Supreme Court has taken a limited view of who has standing in various cases.
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This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
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