Oh, Hey, That Law That Will Probably End Up Closing Down The Only Mississippi Abortion Clinic Takes Effect Today

Try not to have a vagina in Mississippi unless you want men named Bubba referring to an entire state’s worth of women regressing to coathanger abortions as “starting somewhere.”

There wasn’t even really one of those distractions or BS tactics employed by Governor Phil Bryant and co. to cover up the fact that this is all about a conservative vendetta against women’s choices—you know, when they’re like “this is about helping the women” or “LOOK, WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE!” Frankly, dude made no bones about wanting to put the kibosh on abortions in Mississippi back in April when he signed the law, which requires anyone performing abortions at the state’s only clinic to be an OB-GYN with privileges to admit patients to a local hospital. Bryant and legislators who pushed the new law argue that if a woman has issues at the clinic, it would be safer if she would be able to be accompanied by her clinic doctor to the hospital rather than being handed off to a new doctor. Thanks to red tape, this is harder than it seems, and failure to comply with the mandate requires immediate shutdown.

Bryant has said frequently that a cornerstone of his campaign is getting Mississippi “abortion-free.” They’re not wasting any time, either! The Health Department is heading over to check out the clinic tomorrow, and if it’s not complying with this new law (which, given the short amount of time to prepare, the clinic has already said they won’t be), they have 10 days to rework their organization to Health Department standards and will be judged before a hearing 30 days later.