Mississippi Just Passed A Disastrous Anti-Abortion Bill In A Major Blow To Roe V. Wade

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

The Mississippi State Senate on Tuesday passed by a vote of 35 to 15 House Bill 1510, which would prohibit abortions after 15 weeks except for medical emergencies and “in cases of severe fetal abnormality.”

“The Legislature finds that the intentional commitment of [dilation and evacuation procedures] for nontherapeutic or elective reasons is a barbaric practice, dangerous for the maternal patient, and demeaning to the medical profession,” the bill states.

The Gestational Age Act, as it’s called, was first proposed by Rep. Becky Currie in January, and the State House passed it by a vote of 80 to 31 in early February. It will now return to the House for a procedural vote on minor amendments made by the Senate to penalties for offending physicians.

In the likelihood that the bill makes its way to his desk, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant says he will sign it into law. He expressed his unequivocal support on Twitter on Tuesday:

As I have repeatedly said, I want Mississippi to be the safest place in America for an unborn child. House Bill 1510 will help us achieve that goal. https://t.co/ffqRfhwx51

— Phil Bryant (@PhilBryantMS) March 6, 2018

Mississippi’s current abortion laws allow for an abortion to be performed “at 18 or more weeks postfertilization (20 weeks after the woman’s last menstrual period) only if the woman’s life is endangered, her physical health is severely compromised or there is a lethal fetal anomaly,” according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for women’s reproductive health rights.