MFP Voices
Editor’s Note: A Fearful Pride Month Ends
For many LGBTQ+ people, Pride Month 2023 was difficult. It highlights the need for journalists to rededicate themselves to people-focused reporting.
Ashton Pittman
June 30, 2023
For many LGBTQ+ people, Pride Month 2023 was difficult. It highlights the need for journalists to rededicate themselves to people-focused reporting.
Democratic candidate for Mississippi governor Brandon Presley would not have signed legislation that outlawed gender-affirming care for transgender minors such as puberty blockers, he suggested during an appearance in Flowood, Miss., at the Mississippi Press Association on June 16.
“LGBTQ+ Americans are under attack” and “living in a state of emergency,” the nation’s largest pro-LGBTQ+ political lobbying organization said in a statement this morning.
Mississippi’s two highest-ranking women leaders, U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, rejoiced over the weekend after a Texas federal judge blocked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.
The parents of a teenage Mississippi rape victim had to travel more than 500 miles to help their daughter obtain an abortion in Illinois, WAPT’s Megan West reported. The family told the local Jackson anchor that they learned their daughter was pregnant three days beyond Mississippi’s legal limit of six weeks.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade this morning, paving the way for states like Mississippi to restrict abortion access to a greater extent than any time in the last half century. The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization immediately allows Mississippi’s ban on nearly all abortions after 15 weeks to go into effect.
A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the precedent that has underpinned abortion rights in the United States for 49 years, according to a leaked draft of a ruling Politico reported this evening.
Mississippi’s attorney general claims that “God selected this case” to overturn Roe v. Wade, referring Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. For years, Christian dominionists and their allies have sought to remake the U.S. Supreme Court in order to achieve their goals and establish God’s kingdom on earth. Ending legalized abortion is just one of those goals.
For decades, the Christian Dominionist movement has sought to remake earthly government in its image. This is Part I in an in-depth series exploring how Christian dominionists and their allies worked to get Roe v. Wade and abortion rights back before the U.S. Supreme Court—and how they used Mississippi to make it happen.
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
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The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).