FEATURED ARTICLE
The New Yorker: Politics and More
The Last Abortion Clinic in Mississippi
Maisie Crow’s profound documentary Jackson explores the only remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi, the Women’s Health Organization. This is the same clinic at the center of the country’s current fight around abortion, after it challenged the state of Mississippi’s 2018 “Gestational Age Act”, which prohibited abortions in Mississippi after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, except in cases of medical emergencies or fetal abnormalities. The Women’s Health Organization took the “Gestational Age Act” to court in the 2018 case Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, claiming the act was unconstitutional by eliminating a woman’s choice to abort a fetus even before it becomes viable (pregnancies are considered viable at the 24-week mark). The Women’s Health Organization was successful at blocking the law’s enforcement after the law was determined unconstitutional by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, and then affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in December of 2019. However, Thomas Dobbs, the Mississippi Department of Health state health officer, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 2020. This case, Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, has now spurned the Supreme Court’s choice to overturn abortion rights, not just in Mississippi, but across the country.
In a conversation for the New Yorker podcast, The New Yorker: politics and more, Rachel Monroe speaks with Shannon Brewer, the clinic’s director, along with several other women on both sides of the fight, to gain a deeper understanding of the Women’s Health Organization's significance, both in Mississippi and across the U.S.