walked into the only abortion clinic in Mississippi ... only state in the country where abortion is limited to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Pregnant and poor in Mississippi | By Sharon Lerner

Mississippi law limits abortion to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. But for poor women short on time and money, that can be an impossible deadline.

July 2, 2007 | The other day, a quiet 17-year-old, let's call her Angie, walked into the only abortion clinic in Mississippi. A wiry teen with coffee-colored skin and delicate features, Angie had recently screwed up the courage to tell her mother she was pregnant. The pregnancy had blindsided her. (Sure, she had been nauseated and had thrown up a few times, but she figured it was just the stomach bug going around.)

But the real shock hit her inside the unassuming stucco clinic in Jackson. An ultrasound revealed that Angie was not eight or 10 weeks along, as she and her mother had assumed, but 14 weeks into her pregnancy. Then, as they were absorbing the news, a staff member informed them that at that stage of pregnancy, Angie wouldn't be able to get an abortion anywhere in the state.

One year ago, Mississippi became the only state in the country where abortion is limited to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. If the lone doctor, Joseph Booker, at the lone Mississippi clinic, the Jackson Women's Health Organization, were to perform any abortions after the first day of that week, he could face jail time. Angie and her mother aren't the only ones in the dark about the change, though; most patients who come to the clinic have no idea of the 12-week cutoff -- fully four weeks earlier than the 16-week limit the clinic had observed for the previous decade and at least 10 weeks earlier than federal law allows. Several other states have also shortened the window in which abortions are available, though not as drastically. In South Carolina, Indiana, Alaska and South Dakota, for instance, abortions are only available up to the 6th day of the 13th week of pregnancy. ...