Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch stated on Thursday that now that legal abortion is banned in the state, the state must take extraordinary methods to help women and families.
“Today, in Mississippi, for the first time in many years, the will of the people as expressed through their elected legislators, is no longer held up in a court and will go into effect,” Fitch said July 7.
“Now, we must all work together to strengthen the safety net that women need not only for healthy pregnancies, but also as they build families where both they and their children thrive.”
At a June 5 hearing, Judge Debbra Halford denied pro-abortion organisations’ request to overturn the state’s trigger abortion ban.
“The plain wording of the Mississippi Constitution does not mention abortion,” the BBC reported she wrote in her decision.
In 2007, the trigger law was passed. It allows abortion in circumstances of rape and threat to the mother’s life.
Fitch said in her statement that “We need our laws to reflect our compassion for these women and their children. It is time for an open and frank dialogue” about the many actions that need to be taken in order to help women in need.
She cited as “the affordability and accessibility of childcare, child support enforcement that requires fathers be equally responsible for their children, workplace policies like maternity and paternity leave, streamlining adoption, and improving foster care.”
“It is time not just to talk about these issues, but to take action on them,” she concluded.
Fitch’s statement came on the heels of the closure of the state’s only abortion clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which had fought to keep Roe v. Wade in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
According to NPR, the clinic owner aims to operate in a region where abortion is still legal and to refer women across Mississippi state borders.