JACKSON, ma’am. — A Mississippi judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit that was challenged a potential conflict between a 2022 state law banning most abortions and a 1998 Supreme Court ruling that said abortion is guaranteed in Mississippi’s constitution because of the right to privacy.
Judge Crystal Wise Martin of the Hinds County Chancery wrote that the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists lacks legal standing for the lawsuit it filed against the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure in November 2022.
The association failed to show that the licensing board threatened disciplinary action against any of the association’s approximately 35 members for refusing to refer patients for abortion services elsewhere, Martin wrote. She also wrote that the association’s “allegation of speculative damage cannot be assessed.”
“Mississippi law gives the Board the power to suspend, revoke, or limit the license of any physician who performs or facilitates certain abortions,” Martin wrote. “But the Board has no express authority to discipline a physician who refuses to provide abortion services for reasons of conscience.”
Aaron Rice, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he will try to revive the case.
“We will appeal the ruling and look forward to bringing this important constitutional issue to the Mississippi Supreme Court,” Rice said Wednesday.
The U.S. Supreme Court used a Mississippi case in June 2022 destroy abortion rights rural. Mississippi’s only abortion clinic was closed shortly after the ruling, when a new state law took effect that allows abortions only to save the life of the pregnant woman or in cases of rape reported to police.
Members of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists sued the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure months later, seeking to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1998 ruling.
Leaders of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which certifies doctors in the field, have said in the past that they do not expect doctors to violate their moral beliefs. But in this case, anti-abortion doctors say these guarantees are not strong enough.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office argued the case for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. Fitch, a Republican, later wrote that after Roe was overturned, the Mississippi Supreme Court’s 1998 decision was no longer valid because it had relied on Roe.
