Since ujm has given me permission to discuss constitutional law, I will raise this question:
Halacha requires abortion to save the mother’s life. So if the Mississippi law is upheld, and a pregnant Jewish woman develops a fatal medical problem after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and abortion would save her life, the Mississippi law would prohibit the woman’s free exercise of her religion. This poses two issues:
1. Would the right to free exercise of religion prevail over the Mississippi statute?
2. And if so, and a non-Jewish woman were in the same situation as the Jewish woman in my example, would she be denied equal protection of the law, because the Jewish woman’s life can be saved, but the non-Jewish woman’s life cannot?
This problem strikes me as a major problem to the Mississippi statute, or any similar statute.