Two high-profile cases in recent years where the Mississippi Supreme Court limited standing to pursue lawsuits could impact the hot button issue of abortion that some believe could be speeding toward the state’s highest court.
Based on those landmark rulings by the Supreme Court, the never-ending saga continues: Mississippi is simultaneously a state where abortions are technically legal but also where medical providers make no effort to perform abortions.
A group of conservative doctors — Mississippi members of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists — filed a lawsuit asking the courts to overturn a 1998 ruling by the Mississippi Supreme Court saying the state constitution provides a right to an abortion based on privacy.
In October, Hinds County Chancellor Crystal Wise Martin said the physicians did not have the right to file the lawsuit because they could not prove they were harmed by the 1998 ruling. In legal parlance, Wise Martin found the physicians did not have standing to bring the lawsuit.
Attorney Aaron Rice, who represents the physicians, said he intends to file an appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court asking that the Hinds County chancellor’s ruling be overturned.
But it can be argued that the two recent landmark rulings by the Mississippi Supreme Court seem to give credence to Wise Martin’s ruling. In a 2020 case, the Mississippi Supreme Court famously reversed past rulings and said state lawmakers did not have standing to sue the governor challenging his partial veto authority of appropriations bills.
And earlier this year, a Supreme Court majority ruled that the Parents for Public Schools organization did not have the authority to sue challenging the constitutionality of a legislative decision to send public funds to private schools.
In the education funding case, Northern District Supreme Court Justice Robert Chamberlin, writing for the majority, ruled that Parents for Public Schools did not have standing to bring the lawsuit because the group “failed to sufficiently demonstrate an adverse impact that it suffers differently from the general public.” In essence, a party must prove it will endure a specific harm in order to file a lawsuit challenging an action.
In a dissenting opinion, Central District Justice Leslie King asked, “This case begs the question: if parents of public school children are not sufficiently adversely impacted to challenge this government action, who is?”
Every case is different. Perhaps Rice and the physicians can present an argument that makes enough distinctions on the issue of standing to succeed before the high court. But based on a lay reading of the standing rulings, it appears that the physicians have a tough row to hoe.
The doctors argue that because of the 1998 state Supreme Court ruling, they run the risk of being punished if they refuse to help a patient obtain an abortion. But Hinds County Chancellor Wise Martin wrote that the conservative physician group “acknowledged that it is not aware of any instance where a member physician has been disciplined or decertified…for refusing to provide abortion services.”
The judge added that under state Supreme Court precedent, “the potential” of something occurring, such as disciplinary action, is not enough reason to file a lawsuit.
Granted, this is all a bit convoluted since everyone knows Mississippi is the state that filed the lawsuit that led to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and the national right to an abortion.
State politicians constantly tout their leadership in overturning Roe v. Wade. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Mississippi already had laws on the books outlawing abortion in most instances.
But then, someone realized that there was this pesky 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that found that the Mississippi Constitution provided the right to an abortion.
And, of course, people learned in 9th grade civics that the constitution as interpreted by the highest court in the land trumps a measly old law passed by a legislative body.
But then a funny thing happened. As the Mississippi Supreme Court moved slowly to rule on whether the 1998 ruling should be reversed, the state’s abortion providers packed up and left the state and decided not to pursue a case asking the state Supreme Court to rule on the case.
There is no doubt that the abortion providers could prove standing because they are indeed being harmed by the state laws.
But the abortion providers are not asking the state’s highest court to rule. They seemed satisfied with the current state of perpetual limbo on the issue.
If the doctors follow through with their commitment to take the case to the Mississippi Supreme Court, those past rulings limiting who has standing will no doubt be at the heart of discussion.
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