It’s still days until a further review of Mississippi’s new TRAP law, which is meant to shutter the state’s only public abortion center, will happen in the courts. But Mississippi legal experts already project the future of the bill is dim.

Via the Clarion Ledger, Mississippi Attorney Phillip Thomas thinks it may already be a losing battle to fight the injunction.

Credit to Judge Jordan for making the right decision on an emotional and divisive issue.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out from here. How can defenders of the bill claim that its purpose is not to make abortion illegal in Mississippi when they have publicly bragged that that is the bill’s purpose?

Thomas isn’t the only one making that call. 

[P]ublic comments by elected state leaders expressing their hope that the new law would close the Jackson clinic will make it difficult for the court to uphold it, said constitutional law expert George Cochran, a professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law in Oxford.

Cochran said the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that states cannot pass laws posing substantial obstacles or undue burdens on a woman’s right to an abortion. Mississippi’s new law attempts to do just that, he said.

“I think there’s a high probability that the plaintiffs will prevail,” he said. “The governor has publicly stated that the purpose of this law is to shut down the clinic. It’s pretty clear.”

The court will next review the bill on July 11th.