Boston doctor worked at Mississippi's only abortion clinic before it closed
BOSTON -- A doctor from Boston was among the physicians who worked at Mississippi's only abortion clinic before it closed on Wednesday.
For the past five years, Dr. Cheryl Hamlin from Boston was one of the rotating doctors at Jackson Women's Health Organization.
"When I first started coming down here it was just kind of exciting, I felt like I was doing something kind of rogue and never expected this day back then," Dr. Hamlin said.
Mississippi's only abortion clinic closed after the U.S. Supreme Court upended abortion rights nationwide.
Anticipating the effects of Mississippi's "trigger" law, which was previously put in place to allow the state to ban most abortions if federal protections were rescinded, Jackson Women's Health Organization filed a lawsuit seeking to temporarily block the legislation from taking effect. A judge denied the clinic's petition on Tuesday.
Abortion access has become increasingly limited across wide swaths of the U.S. as conservative states enact restrictions or bans that took effect when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
The clinic hired providers from out of state because Mississippi doctors refused to work there.