Kim Gibson escorted patients into Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Clinic, also known as the Pink House, from early 2017 until July 6, 2022, when it was forced to close its doors two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion through Roe v. Wade.
She said she is still “fairly angry” and “sad” about the Pink House’s closure when speaking to the Mississippi Free Press four years after the court’s decision.
“We knew that women would be criminalized. We knew that women would have medical emergencies. We knew that, you know, that people die,” she told the Mississippi Free Press on Wednesday. “Abortion bans are basically, I’ve thought about it in a way of terrorism, because if you think about it, people that are pregnant now are subject to possible death because they can’t get care.”
In 2007, a bipartisan majority of Mississippi Democrats and Republicans passed a “trigger law” that would ban nearly all abortions in Mississippi at any stage with exceptions only for “cases where necessary for the preservation of the mother’s life or where the pregnancy was caused by rape” and reported to law enforcement. That law was triggered following the Roe v. Wade decision, forcing the Pink House to close on July 6, 2022.
Gibson argued that anti-abortion advocates’ number one goal is to enact fetal personhood, a provision that fetuses are people that could be harmed.
“It’s all perverse. All of these laws are based in a religion, a religious thing that’s used to control us. We do not have final say over who can use our bodies and for what and how,” she said. “That’s where we are. That’s how women are considered right now. We’ve marched backwards to the point where we have women saying, ‘Oh, well I don’t really need to vote.’”
Gibson said defying women’s bodily autonomy through the Dobbs decision goes hand-in-hand with politicians enacting laws to tell transgender people what to do with their bodies, what bathrooms to use and what sports to play.
She moved to Long Beach, California, in August 2022 as a direct result of Mississippi banning abortion.
“I wish I still could do more to help people (in Mississippi) access what they need,” Gibson said.
‘Mississippi Showed The World’
Neshoba County Fair attendees wearing red shirts, many of which were adorned with American flags, clapped and cheered as Republican lawmakers celebrated their roles in banning abortion in Mississippi during their fair speeches on June 24 and June 25. Several speakers used the opportunity to tout Mississippi’s role in overturning Roe v. Wade.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch spearheaded the push for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that upheld a woman’s right to an abortion before fetal viability. Her brief is part of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court decision allowing Mississippi’s ban on nearly all abortions after 15 weeks to go into effect on June 23, 2022.
Previously, a federal judge with the Southern District of Mississippi in 2018 and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 struck down the 15-week ban based on precedent set by Roe v. Wade and the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe’s core precedents. The Dobbs decision overruled both Roe and Casey.
“Always remember that we protected life by overturning Roe v. Wade,” Fitch said as fairgoers clapped and cheered. “I’m honored to have led the attorney general’s team on one of the biggest cases in the nation’s history. You know, the big firms and the organizations came down to Jackson, they said, ‘You know, we wrote the law, so we’ll handle the lawsuit for you.’ We told them, ‘We got this at the attorney general’s office.’ And we did. And Mississippi, led by the attorney general’s office, showed the world how to make legal history. And then Mississippi showed the world how to make good on a promise to empower women and promote life.”
‘We Ended Abortions’
Mississippi Agriculture and Commerce Commissioner Andy Gipson, who is also a Baptist preacher, brought his Bible with him on stage while he spoke to fairgoers. He frequently opened it and held it in his hand as he professed his faith.
When he was a state representative and the chairman of the House Judiciary B Committee, he sponsored a 15-week abortion ban in 2018, which the Legislature passed by an overwhelming majority. This sparked the court battle leading to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which led the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending federal protections for abortion rights. Gipson also oversaw the passage of a separate six-week abortion ban that helped guarantee virtually all abortions became illegal in Mississippi once Roe fell.
“I’m Andy Gipson, who was honored and God made all this possible—He put me in office as chairman of Judiciary B where I, along with Dr. Jameson Taylor and my good friend Rep. Becky Currie, we led the fight and passed the bill that overturned Roe v. Wade in America! We ended abortions—surgical abortions—in Mississippi,” he said during his speech at the Neshoba County Fair on June 25. “And I want to say this: No politician gets the glory for that—God alone does.” Taylor is the president and CEO of the Center for Political Renewal, a conservative, anti-abortion nonprofit in Florence, Mississippi.
Much of Gipson’s speech was centered around freedom, as he pushed for Mississippians to “ween ourselves off foreign food supply” and instead promote local foods, processing facilities and distribution centers.
“Only in America can we celebrate the freedoms that we have,” he said.
Gipson is running for governor in the 2027 election.
‘We Protected Our Babies’
Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican, was in the state Senate when he voted on the 15-week and six-week abortion bans. He recalled his persistent cry to the Legislature to ban abortion.
“Do you know what yesterday was? The four-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision,” Watson said during his speech at the Neshoba County Fair on June 25. “One of the cool things about that is, I like to mention about that (is) being on the state floor of the Senate and that debate, talking about those issues. And people would say, ‘You know, Michael, the law’s settled. You’re wasting my time, you’re wasting your efforts, you’re going to lose.’ And I told them, ‘If I can’t spend my time, my money and my efforts on life, there’s nothing else to spend it on. So, we’re going to fight.’ Little did we know, Mississippi became the tip of the sphere and changed the law of this country. I’m really proud of that work we did in the Legislature.”
He is running for lieutenant governor in the 2027 election.
The Mississippi Legislature passed a bill to ban doctors from mailing drugs like misoprostol and mifepristone to patients without seeing them for an in-person visit. Gov. Tate Reeves signed the legislation into law, and it goes into effect on July 1.
“We protected our babies this year: having abortion medicine is now a crime,” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, said during his speech at the fair on June 24.
Kim Gibson said the new law is “another barrier” in a “death by a thousand cuts.”
On May 1, a federal court attempted to ban prescribers from mailing mifepristone to patients without having them come in-person for a check-up. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the ruling and restored access to mifepristone on May 4.
Gibson noted her “disgust” of some of Mississippi’s Republican politicians touting how they helped end abortion in Mississippi, arguing that they either “believe lies” that come from abortion disinformation or “there’s just an animus toward women and pregnant people that they are perfectly OK with.” Saying that banning abortion protects women and children is a lie, she added.
“The harms that women have talked about for years and years because they couldn’t get abortion care, and nothing changes except to take away more care. You know? You obviously don’t care for women—and it’s very difficult when a lot of them are women,” she said, referencing elected officials who are anti-abortion. “And it’s generally a religion-based opinion, not based in scientific fact, not evidence.”
People who need information about out-of-state abortion providers or who need abortion funding can visit Gibson’s We Engage website. While the nonprofit We Engage is no longer in operation, Gibson said she keeps the website updated with abortion accessibility information.
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of abortion access and the Pink House and read past stories here.
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