As Mississippi Goes...

2021 promises to bring more challenges to abortion access across America, despite the election of a new administration. While the Hyde Amendment may finally be retired, so many state legislatures became more Republican and therefore, more anti-choice.

Derenda Hancock and Kim Gibson of We Engage recently spoke with Susan Rinkunas for Rewire News Group about the challenges Mississippi faces in 2021, and Susan put together a great overview of how it is here in Mississippi titled - ‘As We Go, so Do You’: Mississippi Abortion Advocates Prep for an Uncertain Future.

Locally here in Jackson, Mississippi with the repeal of the clinic buffer zone, the city is telling antis that laws don't apply to them and then with the state legislature writing laws FOR them, antis are empowered in ways other people aren't. And that is NOT equality before the law. Antis aren't the only people with rights, though sometimes it certainly seems that way.

And it can happen where you live. Antis have long used Mississippi as a "testing ground" for litigation tactics and laws for years. Once a law or tactic is perfected here, they will use it elsewhere. It works - see North Carolina, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and other states.

Engagement matters. Your engagement matters in changing the conversation from one of shame and stigma to an abortion-positive discussion of patient support and healthcare delivery. Changing the culture, changing the conversation, is the only thing that will change the legislation and stop the harassment, thereby ending the need for clinic defenders and escorts.

We can do this. Together.

#AbortionIsHealthcare #StopTheStigma #ClinicDefender #WeEngage #Pinkhouse Defenders