Federal judge blocks strict abortion law in Mississippi
A federal judge in Mississippi has blocked that state’s latest strict abortion law.

Judge Carlton Reeves on Friday afternoon blocked the ban on procedures after six weeks of pregnancy.

“Doesn’t it boil down to six is less than 15?” Reeves said, according to local news reports. The judge later said that new law “smacks of defiance to this court.”

On Friday, the ruling, on an order granting preliminary injunction, by the judge included this remark: “Here we go again. Mississippi has passed another law banning abortions prior to viability.”

The document does, however point out unquestioningly that the bill had sought to ban abortions “after a fetal heartbeat is detected.”

As the Guardian has previously pointed out, at six weeks, an embryo is not a fetus and does not have a recognizable heart. “Fetal heartbeat” is a term the anti-abortion lobby and certain extremists use to try to give its efforts extra emotive and visceral heft, but is sadly medically inaccurate and therefore misleading.

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