Jackson, MS — Operation Rescue releases the following statement concerning Friday’s Federal Court Order that allows the Mississippi law mandating that abortionists maintain local hospital privileges to go into effect for now. The statement is attributable to Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue:
We are happy that Judge Daniel P. Jordan III has allowed Mississippi House Bill 1390 to go into effect for now, but are deeply distressed at his assessment that if the two abortionists in Mississippi were to stop doing abortions there, it would create an ‘undue burden.’
This law is meant to protect women by ensuring that they have continuity of care in the event of life-threatening abortion complications, where delays can be fatal. The primary abortion provider in Mississippi, Bruce Elliot Norman, has a history of such abortion complications. His shoddy medical practices were responsible for another abortion clinic in Alabama to be forced to close in May. That clinic’s owner, Diane Derzis, who also owns the Jackson Women Health Organization, was banned from any association with any future abortion business there because of her unsafe administration of that abortion business.
It is reprehensible that the JWHO should it be allowed to continue to endanger the lives and health of women simply because it is the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. Women deserve better than to have the Court ignore serious health risks inflicted upon them by fly-by-night abortionists who swoop into Mississippi from out-of-state, only to leave the matter of complications to emergency room staff that have to figure out on their own what happened.
The judge has proposed a new legal doctrine: A dangerous abortion clinic is better than no abortion clinic. We beg to differ.
Abortion clinics already have lower standards than other medical facilities. How low can abortion clinic standards be allowed to go and when does patient safety start to matter?
If a clinic has unsafe operations that endanger patients and violate the law, then it makes no good sense to keep it open. In fact, it would violate the state’s right to protect the public safety.
Operation Rescue will continue to work to provide documentation of abortion abuses by JWHO owners and abortionists so the Court and the community can be fully informed of the shoddy practices that will continue to endanger the lives of women as long as the law is prevented from being fully enforced.
Read the Order