We Need to Preserve Abortion Rights in Mississippi

7:27 AM vjack

State Seal of Mississippi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is sounding increasingly likely that Mississippi's only remaining clinic where women can receive abortions and other forms of reproductive health care will soon close due to legislation passed explicitly for this purpose. Far from valuing religious pluralism, our legislators and governor seem determined to impose their particular form of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity on our state. It does not seem to matter to them that there are many non-Christians here; they are perfectly willing to deprive everyone of services with which they have religiously-based objections.

You may recall that Mississippians defeated a personhood amendment not so long ago (Initiative 26). Voters were given the opportunity to end reproductive freedom for women in our state, and they voted against it. Instead of respecting the will of the voters, our Republican legislators and governor wrote a new law that would close any clinic providing abortion services in our state (HB 1390). This is how convinced they are that their particular set of religious beliefs is the only right one.

Abortion (and reproductive rights more broadly) is often cast as a women's issue, but it should also be an issue of importance for anyone who values religious liberty, the separation of church and state, and the right to make one's own health care decisions without government interference.