JACKSON, Ms. — A young woman entered the parking lot of the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, shrugging her shoulders. She was accompanied by an older woman and a stone-faced young man with a gun to his hip. She seemed terrified.
All around them the sound was deafening. It was early Saturday morning, and a man with a powerful PA system was preaching about Jezebel being eaten by dogs. Dozens of evangelical Christians had come to pray. Volunteer clinic escorts, sweating in the summer heat, guided patients’ cars through the crowd, playing music they thought the evangelicals would hate: Right now, it was the brutal alt-rock song “Stacy’s Mom.” There were posters all over the street with aborted fetuses.
A pastor named Doug Lane crept up to the older woman and encouraged her to persuade the younger woman not to proceed with the procedure. “I wanted her to have the baby,” the woman said in an unsteady voice.
Soon all this – the preaching, the scared patients, the rock music, the gory posters – will disappear. But before that happens, there are guaranteed to be a few more days of roaring, passionate crescendo as the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the pink-painted clinic central to the Supreme Court’s decision to see Roe v. Wade tries to see as many patients as possible. before it is forced to close.
There’s been a lot of talk about what’s to come. Outside the clinic, abortion opponents discussed how their churches could better spread the message of abstinence in a state with the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the country. Supporters of access to abortion, meanwhile, are working to create a network of donors, volunteers, educators and even pilots to help women in the country’s poorest state travel to places where the procedure will remain legal. Similar efforts are underway across much of the country, in states where abortion will now be banned and in places hoping to accommodate women in need from out of state.
“Abortion is our business, and that’s what we’re going to do — make sure women have access,” said Diane Derzis, the owner of the Jackson clinic. “We’re not leaving.”
Since Friday’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, at least 12 more bans or restrictions, including in Mississippi, are expected to come into effect soon. While it was a Mississippi law limiting abortion after 15 weeks that was up for debate in Dobbs, the state also has a so-called trigger law, passed in 2007, that completely bans abortion except in cases of rape or risk to the mother’s life.
That law can only take place on 10 . into force days after state attorney general Lynn Fitch upholds the Supreme Court decision. Ace of Sunday† Ms. Fitch didn’t seem to have done this yet, though there’s little doubt she will soon. Mrs. Fitch, a Republican, filed the deed with the Supreme Court and defended Mississippi’s abortion restrictions; on Twitter, she greeted the decision as “a victory not only for women and children, but for the court itself.”
And so the battle went on outside the pink clinic, as it has for years. The protesters have long been a fixture in Jackson’s Fondren neighborhood, living uncomfortably next to the hip shops and cafes. They have been the subject of city council ordinances, police consent decrees and incessant complaints from business owners. And they are just one of the complications that have made operating the only abortion clinic in Mississippi extremely difficult.
The factor of harassment, the social climate and a host of legal hurdles — including a requirement that abortion providers issue scientifically dubious health warnings to women — have forced the clinic to turn to a rotation of out-of-state doctors who have flown in and out of Jackson for years. .
On Saturday, Mr Lane, the pastor, said it was “annoying” that the clinic kept seeing clients even after the Supreme Court decision. He was in no mood to celebrate Roe’s fall. He previously said he would protest the clinic in the same way he has been since the 1990s.
“This is going to be the hardest nine days of my life,” said Mr. Lane, who, like others, mistakenly assumed that the clock in front of the clinic was already ticking. ‘Because they shouldn’t be doing abortions. All those other states have closed their clinics.”
The day before, Mrs. Derzis, who is in Birmingham, Ala. lives and owns a number of abortion clinics, went to the Jackson clinic and held a defiant press conference outside, her face partially obscured by large Jackie Onassis-style sunglasses. She talked about a new clinic she opened in Las Cruces, NM, about 1,100 miles away, and fundraising efforts to help women in Mississippi travel to New Mexico and other places where abortion will remain legal.
“Just because we’re not there doesn’t mean we won’t see Mississippi women, and whoever needs us,” she said.
In an interview, Ms Derzis, 68, said she had an abortion at the age of 20 in Birmingham in 1973 while she was studying and living with her first husband. A year later, she went to work at a women’s clinic in Birmingham. Owning and operating such clinics, she said, has been her “dream job” and offers her the chance to help women in need. She also said that at one point she felt compelled to get a law degree, given the obstacles her critics have raised over the years.
Ms. Derzis said she would likely keep the Jackson clinic phone number, and the calls might be forwarded to the facility in New Mexico.
Cheryl Hamlin, a Massachusetts physician who flew to work at the Jackson clinic, said in an interview that she was in the process of getting a permit in New Mexico so she could eventually fly there for work. She also researched ways women in Mississippi could get abortion pills “online or by mail or whatever.”
dr. Hamlin said she was encouraged by the new outbreak of enthusiasm around fundraising to help women travel. But she was also worried it might not be a long-term solution.
“You know, that’s going away,” she said.
On Friday, Mrs. Fitch, the Attorney General, posted a tweet saying that after the decision, the government should aim to pass “laws that empower women,” including an overhaul of child support, childcare and workplace policies.
That same day, the three dissident judges in the Dobbs case—Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—listed the many ways Mississippi has failed, with the highest infant mortality rate in the country, and some of the highest rates of preterm birth, low birth weight, caesarean section and maternal death. They noted that while 62 percent of Mississippi pregnancies are unplanned, “Mississippi does not require insurance to cover contraceptives and prohibits educators from demonstrating proper contraceptive use.”
In recent years, Republican lawmakers with firm control over the state have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, for a key reason critics say the state’s health outcomes are so poor. However, in April, Gov. Tate Reeves has signed a bill granting tax credits to supporters of “pregnancy centers,” which are usually aligned with faith groups and advise women against abortion. Terri Herring, president of the Choose Life Mississippi group, was optimistic that the fortified centers would help poor women understand their options in the post-Roe landscape.
“These maternity help centers will provide that compassionate person to guide these people through their pregnancies,” she said. “A lot of women just need to know how to access what’s already available to them.”
When the temperature approached 100 degrees on Saturday, the frustration of the clinicians was palpable. The street was narrow and the escorts tried to shield the patients as much as possible from the protesters and to ensure that no pedestrians were hit.
At one point, Dale Gibson, 53, a merchant seaman who volunteered as an escort, began yelling and cursing at a protester named Zach Boyd, who held up a small rubber fetus doll every time a patient entered, and then yelled at patients through the gate, begging them to repent and keep their baby.
Mr. Boyd had moved Mr. Gibson’s folding camping chair. Mr. Gibson objected, accusing Mr. Boyd, who was standing at the edge of the clinic’s driveway, of trespassing. An armed guard intervened and tried to lower the temperature.
Mr. Gibson said he was fed up with Mississippi and planned to move to California with Kim Gibson, his wife and a fellow escort. “We live in a theocracy, okay?” Mr Gibson added: “If they think it will stop with abortion, people are fooling themselves.”
Ms Derzis said the day had been particularly busy, with 35 abortions performed and 25 counseling sessions for women planning to undergo the procedure soon.
When the last of the patients came in, Mrs. Gibson, who was standing at the entrance to the parking lot, was drenched in sweat and exhausted. An anti-abortion protester, Madison Gass, 21, asked if she would like a bottle of water.
“All I want,” said Mrs. Gibson, “is for you all to make vamoose.”
Mr. Boyd heard her. “We’ll do it in nine days,” he said. “Praise the Lord.”