On July 29, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an as-applied ruling in a case involving Mississippi’s statute requiring that all physicians affiliated with a Jackson clinic providing abortion services have admitting and staff privileges at local hospitals. All local hospitals were unwilling to grant privileges to two of the clinic’s physicians who were involved most directly in abortion services because of the nature of their practices. Had the state’s statute been enforced, the clinic—Mississippi’s only facility offering abortion services—would have been ordered to close.
Mississippi’s argument was that ordering the clinic to close would not impose an undue burden on Mississippi women’s constitutional rights because women would be able to travel to nearby states for abortion services. The Fifth Circuit reasoned to the contrary: “Mississippi may not shift its obligation to respect the established constitutional rights of its citizens to another state. Such a proposal would not only place an undue burden on the exercise of the constitutional right, but would also disregard a state's obligation under the principle of federalism—applicable to all fifty states—to accept the burden of the non-delegable duty of protecting the established federal constitutional rights of its own citizens.” Jackson Women’s Health Organization v. Currier, 2014 WL 3730467 (July 29, 2014).