Laws banning abortions after six-weeks of pregnancy like Mississippi’s so-called fetal “heartbeat” law are “a terrible mistake,” former President Donald Trump said over the weekend.
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.
“While I am continually striving to be a more effective editor every day, I have found that paying that knowledge forward and helping new writers learn the ropes of our chosen field is a greatly rewarding experience,” Deputy Editor Nate Schumann writes.
Hattiesburg, Miss., native Virginia Sciolino writes that when having discussions centering abortion and women’s reproductive rights, emotional intelligence and empathy is needed to break barriers and to challenge systemic disparities. We should “come into conversations with an emphasis on empathy, boundaries, mutual care and respect,” she writes.
Advikaa Anand, 18, writes that abortion is a complex moral issue, but choosing to keep one’s baby is just as difficult a decision to make than choosing to have an abortion—a difficult decision only pregnant persons should make.
U.S. Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., is pushing for Congress to adopt a nationwide ban on abortion once cardiac activity becomes detectable, or around the sixth week of pregnancy.
“Kimberly and I have assembled a team at the Mississippi Free Press who aren’t easily fooled, who believe in difficult proactive reporting, and who report causes and then solutions,” Donna Ladd writes. “Our team is not lured by the two-way horserace model that lets so much vital reporting slip through the cracks and helps ingrain the kinds of public and media ignorance that led us to this moment. We don’t bow to politicians or parties of any stripe, and we work to anticipate the story, not scramble to catch up later.
As someone told me last week in Los Angeles: ‘The MFP model must spread.'”
This spring, in an alleged attempt to ensure women are paid fairly, the Mississippi Legislature passed the so-called Mississippi Equal Pay for Equal Work Act—a law that is more likely to harm than help women and their pocketbooks. This new “Equal Pay Act” went into effect on July 1, and the content of the law is a disgrace to its name.
After half a century, Americans’ constitutional right to get an abortion has been overturned by the Supreme Court. The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has far-reaching consequences. Nicole Huberfeld and Linda C. McClain, health law and constitutional law experts at Boston University, explains what just happened, and what happens next.
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).