JACKSON, Miss. – A federal appeals court has decided not to reconsider its earlier ruling that Mississippi’s 2012 abortion law is unconstitutional.
The decision was handed down Thursday and mean’s Mississippi’s only abortion clinic can remain open. The law required doctors preforming abortions in Mississippi to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. The clinic sued to block the law.
Federal District Judge Dan Jordan stopped the state from enforcing the law to give the doctors more time try to comply. The owner eventually said while the doctors tried, they were all from out-of-state and unable to get such privileges in Mississippi.
A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later ruled that the law could eliminate access in Mississippi to a constitutionally protected medical procedure by closing the clinic. Mississippi’s Attorney General, Jim Hood, then asked the full court to reconsider.
It is not known if the state will appeal to the Supreme Court.
