Mississippi is only the latest state to press for the strict abortion limit — the sort that has already been passed and then blocked in the courts in states including Kentucky, which approved it earlier this month, and Iowa, where a law passed last year was struck down by a state court in January. About 10 other states also are debating bills to ban abortions once fetal heartbeats are found, a point at which some women and girls are not yet aware that they are pregnant.
Supporters of abortion rights said Thursday they would sue to block the new Mississippi law, which will take effect in July unless a court intervenes.
“This ban is one of the most restrictive abortion bans signed into law, and we will take Mississippi to court to make sure it never takes effect,” said Hillary Schneller, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group based in New York.
While fetal heartbeat proposals are not new, momentum around them has grown significantly during this year’s legislative sessions in Republican-controlled state capitals.
The measures clash with Supreme Court decisions that have recognized a woman’s right to an abortion until a fetus is viable outside the womb, usually around 24 weeks into pregnancy. And opponents of abortion say that is part of the intent: to land a new case before the current Supreme Court in hopes of setting sharper limits or even an outright ban.
“I would be proud if it’s Kentucky that takes it all the way up to the Supreme Court and we challenge Roe v. Wade,” Damon Thayer, Republican majority leader of the Kentucky Senate, told reporters in January as state lawmakers considered a fetal heartbeat measure. “That would be absolutely the pinnacle of my career in the Legislature.”
Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas are among the states expected to approve fetal heartbeat measures this year.
Mississippi, which has a single abortion clinic, often takes some of the country’s most aggressive stands against abortion rights. In November, a federal judge blocked a state law that would have banned abortions after 15 weeks.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.