- Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s last abortion center, is located here. It is also at the heart of a SCOTUS court case that could upend Roe v. Wade by 2022.
- Diane Derzis, owner of the clinic, stated that protesters were bringing down the building. “violence”There are many.
- Derzis stated that police have not responded to the requests of help clinic workers in five years.
The following Wednesday: The Supreme Court will hear the initial argumentsDobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is a case that could reverse 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision which gave the federal right of seeking an abortion without government intervention.
Jackson Women’s Health is the last Mississippi abortion clinic and says that the state’s 15 week ban on abortions is unconstitutional.
The employees at the clinic are not the first to speak out about the inequalities of running the only state-run abortion center. During an EpisodeThe Ms. Magazine Podcast, “On the issues with Michele Goodwin,”Diane Derzis, Jackson Women’s Health’s owner, described the “violence”Every day, she and her staff are confronted by anti-abortion demonstrators.
“For the last I’d say 30 years, we’ve been under assault and each year it has worsened,”Goodwin was told by Derzis about the surrounding environment. She stated that anti-abortion protesters have used their tactics. “gone way beyond”Picket signs bearing pictures of dead babies were displayed on them. However, police have not responded to the clinic’s requests for help over the past five years.
While anti-abortion protesters have guns, their children stop trafficking
Derzis says that every day, hundreds of anti-abortion demonstrators wait in Jackson Women’s Health’s drive, sometimes in their thousands.
Derzis stated that abortion-seekers are driving up to the clinic when protesters and their children block streets and bang on windows.
Clinic volunteers are escorting patients up the sidewalk to the front doors. Protesters shout out through megaphones that the clinic is illegal. “killing babies” “going to go to hell,” said Derzis.
According to Derzis, they also use ladders to look over the 20-foot barrier that has been placed around the clinic to protect their privacy.
According to the clinic owner, both the FBI and the local police have not responded in years to calls for help.
She shared that she is continually in awe at her employees’ resilience and the willingness to help those seeking abortions.
“They do so with tears running down their faces, grimaces, but they come in because that’s what women have always done, and they do whatever it takes to obtain an abortion,” Derzis told Goodwin.
Derzis claimed that she has shown FBI photos and videos of these incidents, but no action has been taken.
She stated that she does not believe the authorities will ever be able to respond to protests unless there is an individual who dies.
“I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already,”She told Goodwin.