Appeals court rules against Mississippi heartbeat abortion ban

Citing Supreme Court precedent, a federal appeals court has ruled against a Mississippi pro-life law that would outlaw abortion when an unborn child's heartbeat is detected.

Thursday's ruling comes from a unanimous panel of three federal judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, who also cited the appeals court's recent December ruling against a 15-week abortion ban the state passed in 2018 on the grounds that such a ban would take place before the unborn child is viable outside the womb.

The decision hinges on previous Supreme Court decision precedent that uses the viability of an unborn child outside the womb as a standard for whether or not abortion laws meet constitutional muster. While the point of viability has generally been considered to be around the point of 24 weeks, other babies have been born earlier and survived.

While the parties in the case may disagree about when an unborn child's heartbeat begins during a pregnancy, "all agree that cardiac activity can be detected well before the fetus is viable," the ruling contends. Fetal heartbeats are usually detectable around the sixth week of a pregnancy.

"That dooms the law," the ruling explains. "If a ban on abortion after 15 weeks is unconstitutional, then it follows that a ban on abortion at an earlier stage of pregnancy is also unconstitutional."

Following the law's passage and signature, the Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the case on behalf of the Jackson Women's Health Organization — the state's only abortion clinic — in March. A district court judge blocked the law from going into effect in May, a decision which the Thursday ruling upheld.

The pro-abortion organization celebrated the panel's decision.

"This is now the second time in two months the Fifth Circuit has told Mississippi that it cannot ban abortion," Center for Reproductive Rights senior staff attorney Hillary Schneller said in a statement. "Despite the relentless attempts of Mississippi and other states, the right to legal abortion remains the law of the land."

"A ban at six weeks of pregnancy means many of our patients would lose their right to have an abortion before they even know they're pregnant," said Jackson Women's Health Organization said of the decision. "Most of our patients are past that point."

Mississippi's was just one of several state-level abortion bans to be signed into law last year and subsequently halted by a federal court. Others include Alabama's ban on nearly all abortions, Georgia's heartbeat law, Kentucky's heartbeat law, Ohio's heartbeat law, and Missouri's eight-week ban. Many pro-lifers hope that the numerous legal fights about such measures will eventually lead the Supreme Court to reconsider its past abortion rulings, such as Roe v. Wade.