MFA:

State law forced Mississippi's only abortion clinic, the Jackson Women's Health Organization, to close its doors on July 6, 2022, and the owners opened a new location in New Mexico where abortion remains legal. Under Mississippi's Roe v. Wade trigger law, people who became pregnant as a result of rape still technically had the right to get an abortion"if they reported their rape to law enforcement and found a doctor willing to provide it.

Even before the Dobbs ruling, abortion-rights activists have long warned that Mississippi's narrow exceptions for its abortion bans were largely toothless.

Laurie Bertram Roberts runs the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, which is one of several nonprofit organizations that provides funding for people who need help obtaining abortions in Mississippi. She said that while her organization did not receive a request for help from the family WAPT interviewed, "there's not been a month since we've been around that we don't hear from rape victims."

"The exemption essentially doesn't exist because, for one, who is performing abortions in Mississippi? Nobody, right? The exemption system is essentially set up not to work. If you look at the hoops people have to go through, I think of it the way (Temporary Assistance For Needy Families) applications are set up," Roberts said, referring to a cash-assistance program that annually rejects more than 90% of poor applicants in Mississippi. "It's like, yeah, you can apply, but you're probably not going to get anything."