It’s a new day in Mississippi.
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on June 24, which will allow Mississippi to follow through on all but eliminating legal abortions in the state, our elected leaders have vowed to address the consequences of that ban with determination and compassion.
Both House Speaker Philip Gunn and Senate leader Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann are putting together committees to address myriad issues related to an expected surge in births, particularly among poor Mississippians — everything from prenatal and postnatal care, childcare services, child support, availability to contraception, adoption and foster care.
Hosemann’s nine-member committee, which includes Sen. Angela Turner Ford (D, West Point) will hold the first of four scheduled public hearings on Sept. 27 at the Capitol. All meetings will be available via webcast and archived on the legislature’s YouTube channel.
Gunn has not announced the members of the House committee or scheduled any meetings.
A large majority of legal abortions in our state are performed on poor mothers, as much as 75 percent according to one estimate.
Imagine a state where child care was available and affordable, where teens have access to free contraception, where a foster care system worked effectively eliminate the effects of poverty that often lead to separation of children from their families, where uninsured pregnant mothers had access to prenatal and postnatal care, where the working poor had access to health care that would sustain their children as they grow up.
Can you imagine?
Until now, all you could do is imagine that sort of thing.
Ah, but it’s a new day in Mississippi.
Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath. I’m skeptical on several fronts.
First, put a pencil to the measures we are told are being considered. You had better be good working with big numbers because, if implemented, these changes are going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Where will that money come from? Remember, just this year, the legislature passed a $420 million cut on income tax, five years after the legislature passed the biggest corporate income tax cut in state history, eliminating another $240 million in revenue.
The state is flush with federal COVID-related revenue now, but with the current state of the economy and the prospects of a recession, can our state sustain these costs when those federal dollars go away? Unlikely.
Then there is the matter of our state’s track record when it comes to providing services for the poor. Mississippi already has the highest rate of infant and maternal mortality in the nation. Just this year, the legislature again rejected a proposal to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage for mothers without health insurance to 12 months. Mississippi’s poverty rate is among the worst in the nation. Schools are still allowed to teach “abstinence only” sex education. For 11 years, the state has stubbornly refused to expand Medicaid to the working poor under the Affordable Care Act.
The state has made it so hard to qualify for welfare (TANF) that only a fraction of poor Mississippians receive benefits. Each year, tens of millions of dollars of funds that are dedicated to helping poor Mississippians remain unspent or — as in the case with the recent TANF scandal — misappropriated, winding up in the hands of well-connected and wealthy Mississippians, including former NFL star Brett Favre. It’s one of the most shameful episodes in our state’s history, but there has been virtually no public outcry, which I think speaks volumes about who we really are.
Over the years, if every federal dollar allocated for poor Mississippians had been spent for its intended purpose, thousands and thousands of Mississippians would have escaped poverty. The money to change lives has been there all along. It just hasn’t been spent. That’s no accident. Those in power in our state despise the poor. They always have.
How do I know this?
Every issue listed above has existed in our state for decades and no one in authority cared enough to do anything about it.
Ah, but now that’s changed?
My guess is that our state leaders made these grand promises in the flush of victory that came in the days following the Supreme Court’s ruling. It’s easy to be magnanimous after a political victory.
I seriously doubt our legislature has the conviction needed to follow through.
When the work of these committees is ignored, diluted or rejected by the legislature, as it surely will be, we will again be left to our imagination.
Thousands of babies, most unwanted and born into poverty, will be delivered in Mississippi as a result of the Supreme Court ruling. That’s the “new day” you can reliably count on.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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