Judge dismisses doctors’ lawsuit seeking to overturn abortion rights ruling in Mississippi

A lawsuit challenging a 1998 Mississippi Supreme Court ruling saying the state Constitution provides a right to an abortion has been dismissed.

Hinds County Chancellor Crystal Wise Martin ruled this week that Mississippi members of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists do not have standing to pursue the lawsuit because they have not been harmed by the court ruling.

Martin’s ruling is just the latest twist in the complex and controversial issue of whether abortion is actually legal in Mississippi even though there are no abortion clinics in the state.

While Mississippi is viewed as a strict anti-abortion state, the state Supreme Court ruling from the 1990s affirming the right to an abortion has never been overturned.

State laws passed by the Legislature prohibit most all abortions in the state and there are no Mississippi clinics offering abortions. But in the lawsuit, the conservative physicians group pointed out the ambiguity of the issue since in normal legal proceedings a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of an issue would trump state law.

But in her ruling, Martin pointed out that the state Supreme Court in multiple recent high-profile rulings has limited standing, or who has the ability to file a lawsuit. Martin said testimony on the issue revealed that physicians had not been punished in Mississippi for refusing to perform abortions so they did not have standing

She said in an August 2023 hearing that the conservative physician group “acknowledged that it is not aware of any instance where a member physician has been disciplined or decertified … for refusing to provide abortion services.”

And Martin added that under state Supreme Court precedent “the potential” of something occurring, such as disciplinary action, is not a reason to file a lawsuit.

Martin wrote the conservative physician group “fails to bring a justiciable claim for lack of standing and ripeness and dismisses the complaint.”

While losing in Hinds Chancery Court, the physicians in essence got what they said they wanted in their original lawsuit filed in November 2022  – the potential for the state Supreme Court to reverse the 1990s’ ruling that said the state Constitution granted a right to an abortion. Aaron Rice, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the anti-abortion rights doctors, confirmed to Mississippi Today his intention to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court

The question then will be whether the Supreme Court will consider the appeal under the high court’s new and strict interpretation of who has standing to file the case.

In Hinds County Chancery Court, both the state, through Attorney General Lynn Fitch, and pro-abortion rights supporters argued the doctors did not have standing.

The complex legal maze began after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2022 in a case filed by Mississippi that there was no national right to abortion. After that ruling, the Mississippi Center for Justice filed a lawsuit arguing abortions should be legal in Mississippi until the state Supreme Court ruling affirming the right to abortion was overturned by the state’s highest court. The Mississippi Center for Justice filed the lawsuit on behalf of its client, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, then the only abortion clinic in the state.

In an unusual ruling in early July 2022, Chancery Judge Debbra Halford of Meadville, appointed to hear the case by the state Supreme Court, refused to block the state laws banning abortions. One of her primary reasons for not blocking the laws is because she predicted the current state Supreme Court would reverse the ruling providing a right to abortion in the Mississippi Constitution.

 The Mississippi Center for Justice appealed to the Supreme Court. But the state’s highest court refused to take up the case on an expedited schedule. Amid the uncertainty, Jackson Women’s Health Organization closed and the Mississippi Center for Justice dropped the appeal.

But in November of 2022 the conservative leaning Mississippi Center for Public Policy renewed the issue, filing the lawsuit claiming that because of the uncertainty caused by the existence of the 1998 Supreme Court ruling doctors who chose not to perform abortions could face punishment.

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