Abortion after 6 weeks? It’s now illegal in Florida
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida was once a state thousands of women traveled to in order to receive an abortion, but that’s no longer the case as of Wednesday after the state’s six-week abortion ban took effect.
“It’s a step in the right direction in creating a culture of life,” said, Reginald Hobbs of the Tampa Bay Pro-Life Alliance.
At six weeks, many women don’t realize they are pregnant. Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida Interim CEO Barbara Zdravecky said the law will create a health care crisis across America.
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“Planned Parenthood is an organization whose north star is care no matter what, and we can’t provide that care no matter what now because of what’s happened in Tallahassee with our politicians,” she said.
The law has exceptions for rape, incest, and human trafficking up to 15 weeks and for the life of the mother and fatal fetal abnormalities, but Dr. Robyn Schickler, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, said that’s not sufficient.
“It puts doctors like me in a place of interpreting laws when we’ve had medical training, we didn’t have to interpret law to figure out if we can or can’t take care of a patient,” said Schickler.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, it’s been a fight for each state.
Hobbs said he educates the minority community of the high abortion rate.
“Being African American, it’s one of the issues that concerns me that we make up 13% of the population but have about 30 to 40 percent of the abortions,” Hobbs said.
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State data shows last year, more than 9,000 women traveled to Florida to receive the procedure.
“Our care will be helping patients to migrate out of the state of Florida so they can find care and states that are more friendly to themselves,” said Zdravecky.
Nearby options for care after six weeks will be North Carolina and Virginia.
In November, there will be a constitutional ballot amendment that would protect abortion rights, meaning Florida voters will have the final say.
“We have unprecedented success that we’ve had in the state. We do have some threats to that success to some of the things that be on the ballot, and those will be the constitutional amendments that we’re going to be working very hard to make sure that people know what exactly it is doing,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference in Hardee County on Wednesday.
“Our main focus is going to be defeating Amendment 4 in November,” Hobbs said.
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