Mississippi's only abortion clinic closes after judge leaves state law in force

Washington: The only clinic performing abortions in Mississippi closed its doors Wednesday for the final time, the latest in legal scrambles taking place across the U.S. following the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

The Jackson Women's Health Organization, nicknamed the Pink House performed its last pregnancy-ending procedures before a law banning all abortions goes into effect in the conservative, impoverished state in the US South.

"Today is a hard day for all of us @ the last abortion provider in Mississippi, The Pink House Fund, which raised donations to keep the institution running, posted on Twitter.

Jackson Women's Health gained international notoriety for having triggered the legal process that eventually led to the US Supreme Court's June 24 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that had enshrined the nationwide right to abortion in the United States.

The clinic had filed a lawsuit against a Mississippi law that would restrict abortion to 15 weeks.

With the case, the high court -- which has shifted to the right with the appointment of three conservative justices by president Donald Trump -- gave each state the freedom to ban or maintain the legality of abortions within their borders.

Mississippi's law, passed in 2007, carries penalties of up to 10 years in prison for violations, and provides exceptions only in cases of danger to the life of the mother -- but not for rape or incest.

The Pink House had asked local courts to block the law, but they refused, leaving the clinic with no choice but to close.

One of the clinic's attorneys, Hillary Schneller of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the judge should have blocked the law.

"People in Mississippi who need abortions right now are in a state of panic, trying to get into the clinic before it's too late," Schneller said. "No one should be forced to live in fear like that."

With most neighboring states equally hostile to abortion, women in Mississippi who wish to end a pregnancy will have to resort to using abortion-inducing pills or traveling in some cases hundreds of miles (kilometers) to have an abortion in states like Illinois.

Elsewhere in the country, several other facilities have gone out of business.