Tag Archives: Mississippi

New GOP Laws ‘Will Devastate Abortion Access Across Large Parts of the Nation’

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“Florida has been a critical haven for abortion access in the South, and this ban will decimate abortion access for Floridians and the entire region,” one group said after the governor’s signature.

By Jessica Corbett  Published 4-14-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Adam Fagen/flickr/CC

After Florida’s GOP governor on Thursday signed a 15-week abortion ban inspired by a contested Mississippi law that could soon reverse Roe v. Wade, pro-choice advocates warned of impacts across the region, given that the Sunshine State has long been “an oasis of reproductive care in the South.”

With Gov. Ron DeSantis’ support, Florida’s law is set to take effect this summer. His signature came after Republican state legislators in Kentucky on Wednesday overrode their Democratic governor’s veto of a similar bill and GOP Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday signed a near-total abortion ban. Continue reading →

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‘Worse Than Texas’: Extreme Anti-Choice Bills Advance in Multiple States

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“These attacks on our rights are coordinated and connected,” noted Planned Parenthood Action.

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 3-17-2022 by Common Dreams

Reproductive rights defenders march during the Rally for Abortion Justice in Washington, D.C. on October 2, 2021. (Photo: Kisha Bari/Women’s March/Twitter)

As anti-choice policymakers across the country seek to severely restrict reproductive freedom—and as the fate of Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance pending a looming U.S. Supreme Court decision—Republican lawmakers in at least four states this week advanced bills banning or limiting abortion access.

The Idaho Legislature on Monday became the first in the nation to approve a bill modeled after a Texas law that empowers citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks. Continue reading →

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Black Mississippi State Senators Stage Walkout as Critical Race Theory Ban Passed

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“We cannot continue to stumble into the future backwards,” said one Black senator who taught for 33 years. “That’s what this bill does.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 1-22-2022 by Common Dreams

Every Black member of the Mississippi state Senate walked out of the legislative chamber in protest on Friday as the Republican-led body passed a bill critics say will ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools, from kindergarten through college.

S.B. 2113—titled Critical Race Theory, Prohibit—passed by a vote of 32-2 as 14 Black lawmakers filed out of the Senate chamber. Two white Democratic senators—David Blount (District 29) and Hob Bryant (District 7)—remained in the chamber to vote against the measure. Continue reading →

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The erosion of Roe v. Wade and abortion access didn’t begin in Texas or Mississippi – it started in Pennsylvania in 1992

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Demonstrators in Austin march at the Texas State Capitol in just one of many rallies held across the U.S. to protest the state’s new abortion law.
Montinique Monroe/Getty Images News via Getty Images

Alison Gash, University of Oregon

Abortion rights are more vulnerable to Supreme Court reversal now than at any time since the court legalized the procedure in its landmark 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade.

The court is set to weigh in on abortion restrictions from at least two states this term. The first is a Texas law effectively outlawing abortions after six weeks. The second is a Mississippi law barring abortions after 15 weeks.

On Oct. 22, 2021, the Supreme Court upheld a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allowing the Texas law to go into effect while the case is being litigated. Continue reading →

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Supreme Court Announces Date for Case Directly Challenging Roe v. Wade

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“The fate of Roe v. Wade and legal abortion is on the line.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-20-2021

Clouds are seen above The U.S. Supreme Court building on May 17, 2021 in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Monday said that on December 1, it will hear a Mississippi abortion case that challenges Roe v. Wade. (Photo: Joe Ravi/cc)

Abortion rights advocates geared up for a major fight as the U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it will soon hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case in Mississippi which poses a direct challenge to Roe vs. Wade.

The high court confirmed it will consider the case December 1 after months of speculation regarding when it would take up the dispute over Mississippi’s ban on most abortion care after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Continue reading →

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Architect of Texas Abortion Ban Takes Aim at LGBTQ+ Rights While Urging Reversal of Roe

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“Make no mistake, the goal is to force extreme, outdated, religious-driven values on all of us through the courts.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-18-2021

The Women’s March on Washington in 2017. Photo: Mobilus In Mobili/flickr/CC

Advocates for reproductive freedom and LGTBQ+ equality on Saturday pointed to a legal brief filed in a U.S. Supreme Court case that could soon overturn Roe v. Wade as a crucial example of the broader goals of those fighting to end abortion rights across the United States.

“It’s never just been about fetuses. It’s about controlling sex,” tweeted Muhlenberg College assistant professor Jacqueline Antonovich, a historian of health and medicine. Continue reading →

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‘A Devastating Failure’: Eviction Ban Expires as House Goes on Vacation and Biden Refuses to Act

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“We’re now in an eviction emergency,” said Rep. Cori Bush. “Eleven million are now at risk of losing their homes at any moment. The House needs to reconvene and put an end to this crisis.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-1-2021

Capitol police tell a group it’s “prohibited to sleep on the ground” as they protest the end of the eviction moratorium. Photo: Alia Fierro/Twitter

A nationwide eviction moratorium officially expired Saturday after the Biden administration refused to extend it unilaterally and Congress failed to act in time, putting millions of people across the U.S. at risk of losing their homes in the near future as the highly virulent Delta strain tears through the country.

The CDC’s temporary eviction ban lapsed as a growing group of lawmakers and activists rallied on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to demand that Democratic leaders immediately reconvene the House and pass an extension. Many lawmakers skipped town Friday after the House adjourned for its seven-week August recess without holding a vote on prolonging the moratorium, which—while flawed—significantly curbed the number eviction filings nationwide. Continue reading →

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228 Republicans Blasted for Brief Urging Supreme Court to Overturn Roe v. Wade

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“Every single politician who signed this amicus brief is actively working to strip away our fundamental freedoms and endanger pregnant people and families across the country.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-29-2021

Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe) and her lawyer Gloria Allred on the steps of the Supreme Court, 1989. Photo: Lorie Shaull/flickr/cc

While praising the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday for passing a spending bill without the Hyde Amendment for the first time in decades, reproductive rights and justice advocates sounded the alarm over 228 congressional Republicans urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Concerns about the fate of the landmark 1973 ruling—which affirmed the constitutional right to abortion before viability—have mounted since former President Donald Trump appointed three right-wing justices to the nation’s highest court, giving conservatives a 6-3 supermajority. Continue reading →

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‘Triumph for Environmental Justice’: Oil Companies Scrap Pipeline Plans Amid Grassroots Pressure

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“We’ve shown them that we aren’t the path of least resistance,” said a local organizer. “We are the path of resilience.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-4-2021

Activists attend a rally opposing the Byhalia Connection pipeline. (Photo: @Hunter_Demster/Twitter)

Community activists in Memphis, Tennessee and northwest Mississippi celebrated a grassroots victory on Saturday after two oil companies canceled plans to build a pipeline that would have run through wetlands and several low-income, majority-Black neighborhoods.

Valero and Plains All American Pipeline had long planned to construct the Byhalia Connection pipeline, which would have been 49 miles long and linked two pipelines that transport crude oil to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Continue reading →

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‘Racist, Unconstitutional, and Anti-Democratic’: Florida Senate Passes GOP Anti-Protest Bill

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“This bill is a disgrace to our state.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-16-2021

George Floyd protests in Miami, Florida on June 6, 2020. Photo: Mike Shaheen/Wikimedia Commons/CC

After Florida’s Senate Republicans on Thursday passed an undemocratic anti-protest bill—expected to be signed into law by its chief proponent, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, as early as next week—the state’s ACLU chapter condemned GOP lawmakers for “aiming to shut down political speech they disagree with in a direct attack on the First Amendment and at the cost of Black and Brown people.”

House Bill 1 “is racist, unconstitutional, and anti-democratic, plain and simple,” Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement. Continue reading →

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