Appeals court blocks Mississippi ‘heartbeat’ abortion ban

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after six weeks into a pregnancy.

A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously Thursday to uphold a federal judge’s ruling issued in May 2019 that the law couldn’t stand. The same appeals court in December also struck down another Mississippi law that would have made abortion illegal after 15 weeks.

Supporters of six-week bans call them “heartbeat bills” because they make abortion illegal from the time a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat.

Judges default to the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in such cases. The decision legalized abortion across the United States until at least fetal viability, which is generally understood to be roughly 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

The judges involved in the decision were Carolyn Dineen King, Gregg Costa, and James Ho, appointees of Presidents Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, respectively.

“All agree that cardiac activity can be detected well before the fetus is viable,” the judges wrote. “That dooms the law. If a ban on abortion after 15 weeks is unconstitutional, then it follows that a ban on abortion at an earlier stage of pregnancy is also unconstitutional.”

A handful of red states have passed similar six-week bans in the hopes that the Supreme Court would overturn the Roe ruling now that it tilts more conservative with the high court additions of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The Center for Reproductive Rights was among the groups that brought the lawsuit on behalf of Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi.

“This 6-week ban is an even more extreme attempt to take away the rights of Mississippi residents,” the organization wrote on Twitter after the ruling. “Not on our watch.”