JACKSON, Miss. (BP) – Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant on March 19 signed into law the earliest protection in the nation for unborn babies.
The bill bans abortion after 15 weeks’ gestation, rolling back the state’s current 20-week limit. It passed through the state legislature by wide margins earlier this month.
The Center for Reproductive Rights has promised to challenge the law’s constitutionality in court, calling it “the latest in the state’s string of cruel and unnecessary assaults on reproductive rights.”
After the state legislature passed the new restriction, Bryant applauded it as making Mississippi the safest place in the nation for unborn babies. Challenges to the law are likely to take it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has generally established the standard of viability at 20 weeks’ gestation.