Only obstetrician-gynecologists with privileges at local hospitals will be able to perform abortions under a new law in Mississippi.
The law, signed April 16 by Gov. Phil Bryant (R), requires that all physicians who perform abortions at an abortion facility must be board-certified or board-eligible ob.gyns. and must have staff and admitting privileges at a local hospital. The law also requires that a person trained in CPR must be present at the abortion clinic whenever it is open. The law is scheduled to go into effect in July.
The requirements are necessary, Gov. Bryant said, to protect patient safety in the event of a complication during an abortion procedure.
"I believe that all human life is precious, and as governor, I will work to ensure that the lives of the born and unborn are protected in Mississippi," he said in a statement.
Abortion rights advocates say the restrictions are an attempt to eliminate abortions in the state.
Currently, only one abortion clinic, Jackson Womens Health Organization, operates in the state. Shelley Abrams, the clinic’s executive director, said that only one of their physicians currently has admitting privileges at a local hospital.
Going forward, they will attempt to gain privileges for the other physicians who work at the clinic, but Ms. Abrams said that could be difficult. For instance, hospitals generally require that physicians with staff and admitting privileges take call and admit patients. That is a major hurdle for most the clinic’s doctors who live outside of Mississippi, she said.
Ms. Abrams said that she anticipates that hospitals will face pressure from antiabortion activists to deny privileges to the clinic’s physicians. "The antiabortionists in Jackson, Miss., have made the entire state a very inhospitable place for medical practitioners," she said.
If they are unable to gain privileges for their physicians, Ms. Abrams said that they will be forced to challenge the law in court to keep the clinic running.
The state has long been an abortion battleground. Last November, Mississippi voters rejected a "personhood amendment" that would have changed the state’s constitution to grant legal rights to embryos, starting at the time of fertilization.
The Mississippi law was signed just days after Arizona enacted controversial new abortion restrictions that will ban abortions at 20 weeks’ gestation and require that women receive an ultrasound before an abortion can be performed.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) praised the law as "common sense" and added that "knowing that abortions become riskier the later they are performed in pregnancy, it only makes sense to prohibit these procedures past 20 weeks."
The Arizona law is one of the most extreme in the country, according to reproductive rights advocates. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which is challenging the law in federal court, noted that 18-20 weeks’ gestation is a time when many women undergo a comprehensive scan to uncover major fetal abnormalities and health risks to the mother.
"Some women at risk of grave complications will be forced to decide whether to proceed with their pregnancies in the dark, before they have all the information they need to arrive at their choices," Nancy Northup, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
Seven other states have similar restrictions on abortions after 20 weeks, according to Gov. Brewer.
Abortion legislation is being considered in many statehouses this year: In the first three months of 2012, 75 abortion restrictions were passed by at least one state legislative chamber, according to an analysis from the Guttmacher Institute. That pace isn’t record setting, but it’s unusually high for an election year, the institute noted. So far, most of the pending legislation has focused on requirements that women receive an ultrasound before an abortion, limiting access to medical abortions, and bans on abortion after a certain gestational age.