When *Dobbs* was issued, a previously-passed “trigger law” automatically went into effect, banning nearly all abortions in the state.
Under Mississippi’s current abortion law, abortion is illegal except in two narrow situations: (1) to save the pregnant abortion law mississippi person’s life in a medical emergency, and (2) when the pregnancy results from a reported rape. There is no exception in Mississippi law for incest unless it is prosecuted as rape. There is also no exception for fetal abnormality, health conditions short of a life-threatening emergency, or socio-economic reasons. Performing or inducing an abortion outside the permitted exceptions is a felony. Physicians who violate the ban can face criminal penalties, including imprisonment and loss of medical licensure. The statute does not authorize prosecuting patients themselves for obtaining an abortion.
Because the ban criminalizes abortion providers, Mississippi has no operating clinics providing abortions. Mississippians seeking abortion commonly travel to other states where abortion remains legal or consider medication abortion obtained under the laws of other jurisdictions. Mississippi law does not currently criminalize traveling out of state to obtain an abortion, although political discussion on that subject has occurred nationally.