Reproductive choice is a constitutional right. Yet, as we see every day, extremists focus their attention on harassing and terrorizing abortion providers, organizations, clinics, patients, and advocates.
C. A. Goldberg, PLLC is so proud announce that we have joined The Feminist Majority Foundation, Abortion Access Front, The National Organization For Women Foundation, The Southern Poverty Law Center, We Engage, Professor David S. Cohen, and Krysten Connon in an amicus brief filed Monday at the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Jackson Women’s Health Organization!
Here’s what you need to know:
After a rapid expansion of abortion services in Mississippi in the years immediately following Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion extremists waged a campaign that included stalking, intimidation, and violence against doctors who provided abortion care. This campaign was not isolated or sporadic, but sustained and pervasive. The campaign of violence and threats was also effective, coinciding with a sharp decline in access to and the provision of abortion services in Mississippi.
Violence has been a deliberate strategy of anti-abortion extremists to reduce and eliminate abortion access, and violence has been especially successful in reducing access to abortion care in Mississippi.
As the amicus brief mentions, “The State ignores this dark stain on the post-Roe history of abortion in America, conveniently omitting any mention of the widespread violence and intimidation that have been such a prominent part of the experience of providers and, more broadly, the general public who have witnessed the many highly visible attacks on clinics and providers.”
“The State is trying to reframe this history as a mere “controversy” over a “contested policy issue,” having whitewashed from its account the tactics employed by violent anti-abortion extremists in their assaults against both providers and the rule of law,” it continues.
Anti-abortion violence contributed to the closure of all but one provider in the state, severely limiting access to abortion for Mississippi residents. For the past 15 years, Jackson Women’s Health Organization has been the only provider in the entire state. And in 2018, the Mississippi legislature passed a law further restricting access to this safe and essential healthcare. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – the only licensed abortion provider left in the state – went to court to challenge the law’s constitutionality and stop the state from enforcing it.
We believe that curtailing our long-established constitutional right to abortion would reward anti-abortion extremists’ violent acts and undermine the rule of law.
It would also severely damage the health and well-being of pregnant individuals, hitting people of color, those living in rural areas, and those without ample financial resources hardest.
To read the full amicus brief on the Supreme Court website, click here.
