Jackson:
A US appeals court panel ruled today that a Mississippi law that would close the state's only abortion clinic is unconstitutional. The case is the latest in the decades-long struggle by some social conservatives to chip away at a woman's constitutional right to have an abortion.
The issue remains one of the country's most sensitive, politically and otherwise, with various challenges in a number of states. The Mississippi case involves one of the poorest states in the country. The law would have left women there going to other states for an abortion.
The three-judge panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case involving the state's 2012 law, which required physicians at the Jackson Women's Health Organization to obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital.
Physicians at the clinic applied for the privileges at area hospitals but were unable to get them. Attorneys for the state argued that if the clinic closed, women could get abortions in other states.
"Today's ruling ensures women who have decided to end a pregnancy will continue, for now, to have access to safe, legal care in their home state," Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a news release.
The panel ruled that a US Supreme Court decision in 1973 established a constitutional right to abortion. The panel ruled that Mississippi may not shift its obligation for established constitutional rights of its citizens to another state. The 5th Circuit handles cases from Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.