A white, 20-foot tall inflatable IUD named Freeda Womb swayed in the gentle breeze on the lawn next to the Mississippi Supreme Court Building in downtown Jackson Tuesday in honor of the 61st anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, which gave married couples the right to use contraception without the government’s interference.
“That decision was more than about birth control. It was about privacy, dignity and the right for people to make the informed decisions about their bodies,” Ja’lyn McElroy, founder and executive director of Providing Unlimited Period Access, said at a Tuesday press conference by the inflatable IUD. “As an advocate for menstrual health and hygiene, I see every day how the access can really affect someone’s mental capacity and just their quality of life. Hygiene products, contraceptives, (and) period products are not luxuries—they’re all basic needs.”
PUPA is a statewide nonprofit based in Jackson aimed at providing free period products, contraception, body wash, undergarments and education to girls and women. McElroy told the Mississippi Free Press that educating women and girls about their menstrual cycles, how to manage them and how to stay healthy is just as important as providing them with hygiene products. To provide these resources, PUPA works with schools, medical organizations, politicians and individuals, and will go “anywhere you call,” she said.
McElroy gave a reminder that the right to contraception is not separate from access period products—they are all part of “reproductive justice.”
“In Mississippi, too many people still face barriers, stigma, misinformation, transportation challenges and limited access to reproductive and menstrual healthcare,” she said. “When access is restricted or when misinformation is spreaded, the people most impacted are often those already facing the greatest barriers that most people face here in Mississippi.”
Americans for Contraception, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for protecting contraceptive rights, brought Freeda Womb to Mississippi on Tuesday as part of a multi-year national tour to showcase the need for federal and state right to contraception acts.
Also on Tuesday, U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson signed a petition to allow the U.S. House to vote on U.S. House Rep. Lizzie Fletcher’s Right to Contraception Act. Congress has never codified the right to contraception.
‘We Must Remain Vigilant’
In 2009 and 2010, Mississippi Sen. Kamesha Mumford, D-Jackson, had two miscarriages, she told Mississippi Today in April 2026. In both cases, her doctor prescribed her the abortion-inducing drug misoprostol to help her body release the fetal tissue.
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.
“Earlier this year, I shared a deeply personal story about how a medication that my colleagues fought to criminalize this session allowed me to safely grow my family,” Mumford said at the press conference. “I bring that up because today I am reminded how complex the human body is, how miraculous science is because it is very rare that a medication only serves one purpose. People aren’t one dimensional and neither is the science that we use to improve the quality of life.”
Mumford said Republican politicians across the country, including in Mississippi, are spreading misinformation about birth control, crafting policies aimed at tearing down privacy laws and limiting access to reproductive healthcare while also targeting family planning programs and contraception funding.
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.
Mumford warned that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wanted to roll back the right to contraception, referring to Thomas’ concurrence in the 2022 Dobbs v. the Jackson Women’s Healthcare Organization decision where he explicitly identified the Griswold decision as one the court should revisit.
“We are here to remind Mississippians that no rights are set in stone as we saw when the Supreme Court took a hatchet to the Voting Rights Act,” she said. “We must remember that we cannot sit back; we must remain vigilant.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority curtailed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—a key provision which has long prevented states from enacting racially gerrymandered maps for the purpose of diluting the voting power of racial minorities. In recent years, federal courts have ordered Mississippi to create more majority-Black legislative and state Supreme Court districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act, but the Callais decision has already reversed those rulings.
‘Leave Our Bodies Alone’
Mississippi House Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, said it is time for politicians who support access to reproductive healthcare and contraception to start playing offense instead of constantly being on the defensive.
“I don’t think we have a choice but to be on the offense. I think that’s what the people deserve. I think that’s what they want,” she told the Mississippi Free Press on Tuesday. “They’re tired of seeing, you know, lawmakers come up here and vent and talk about what we weren’t able to do. They want to see what we can do, and in this process, there’s a certain level of pragmatism that you need, but there’s also a greater level of hope that you need to bring.”
Summers sponsored the Right to Contraception Act in 2024 and 2025 to protect contraception rights under state law. The bill was unsuccessful both years, as Republicans in the House killed it.
“Contraception, as we know, is much more than about preventing pregnancy. It is used to manage health conditions, provide hormone therapy during different stages of menopause and protect overall reproductive health,” Summers said. “For many women, access to contraception is access to better health and a better quality of life.”
She told the Mississippi Free Press that she and her Democratic colleagues must reach across the aisle to find allies of reproductive healthcare in the Republican Party to get legislation past the finish line. Right now, while the Legislature is not in session, she said she and Mumford are also working to build a “roundtable of colleagues that we believe we can get to join in with us.” This tactic could especially work well with Republican women because “we all have something in common, you know? We’re mothers,” Summers said.
She added that Republican and Democratic women in the Legislature have more in common than it might appear. As an example, Summers mentioned Republican Rep. Missy McGee’s bill to create an infant and fetal mortality review panel, which will become law on July 1. Summers also noted Sen. Nicole Boyd and Rep. Dana McLean advocating for eliminating the sales tax on diapers. Their efforts were unsuccessful.
During the off-session season, Summers said she is also with maternal health advocacy partners on how best to support women, children and families with policies.
With Mississippi continuously holding the highest rates of preterm births, infant mortality and maternal mortality, Summers said Republican lawmakers in Mississippi need to focus on funding struggling rural hospitals and addressing healthcare needs instead of striking down Mississippians’ rights.
“Leave our bodies alone. Government should be in the business of protecting our rights, not taking them away,” she said at the press conference.
Mississippi Free Press stories are always free because we believe everyone should have access to quality journalism. Donations from readers like you make that possible. Please click here to give to help sustain and grow vital, people-over-power journalism for Mississippians.
Readers can sign up for our free newsletters here.
