Florida’s 6-week abortion ban is now in effect. Clinics in the state are scrambling.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida’s strict ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy went into effect Wednesday, which clinic operators fear will impact at least 40,000 women a year unless voters agree to overturn the measure in November.

The new law replaces another ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that Florida’s Republican-led Legislature approved more than two years ago. The tighter six-week restriction will make having an abortion nearly impossible for most patients. The measure includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest, human trafficking and for serious medical complications.

The stricter ban has also ended Florida’s status as a bastion for abortion access in the Southeast, with well over 6,000 women previously coming to the state every year from neighboring Alabama and Georgia, where laws restricting abortions are more strict.

Now with Florida’s “Heartbeat Law,” abortion clinics are expanding to offering other services, and working with abortion funds to help women travel outside the state to have an abortion. But that kind of assistance will only be available for some patients, said Kelly Flynn, founder of A Woman’s Choice clinic in Jacksonville, adding that many will be left without any options in Florida.

“Most patients don’t understand the severity of this, and [we are] talking to them and letting them know what’s happening,” Flynn said. “Some are just so desperate for care that she’s not hearing how dire this is — her main concern is that she needs to get in and have an abortion.”

Groups that oppose abortion hope the impact of Florida’s six-week ban will be felt across the region. Mat Staver, the founder and chair of the Liberty Counsel, wrote in a statement that the law will bring tougher punishments to people who perform illegal abortions.

“The Heartbeat Law will save countless lives, some of whom may become world leaders,” Staver wrote. “The Heartbeat Law protects the valuable lives of both the unborn child and the mother and provides a wide range of options and support for women.”

Florida’s Republican-led Legislature approved the 15-week ban in 2022 as the U.S. Supreme Court appeared primed to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had limited abortion restrictions to about 24 weeks into a pregnancy. After the high court struck down Roe, Florida followed suit by passing the six-week ban, with Gov. Ron DeSantis signing it into law weeks before launching his presidential campaign.

Wednesday’s rollout of the six-week ban was triggered by a Florida Supreme Court decision handed down one month ago, which rejected a legal challenge brought by Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion rights groups to stop the 15-week ban. The Florida Supreme Court decision upholding the 15-week ban dealt an even tougher blow to pro-abortion-rights groups by undoing precedent that used a right to privacy in the state constitution to void abortion restrictions for more than three decades. That triggered the six-week ban to go into effect one month after the decision was handed down.

“It’s a terrible restriction on women's reproductive rights,” Louis Silber, a lawyer who has represented the Presidential Women’s Center, an abortion clinic in West Palm Beach. “They’re just going to do the best they can at continuing to serve the community and its families.”

Without the privacy right, abortion-rights advocates and clinics are placing all hope in a November ballot initiative that seeks to loosen abortion restrictions, including allowing the procedure until viability, which is generally considered to be about 24 weeks of pregnancy. The initiative, which will appear on the ballot as Amendment 4, is led by Lauren Brenzel, who said while it’s unfortunate that thousands of women would temporarily lose access to abortion, the campaign is confident that Florida voters will approve Amendment 4 in November.

“The good news is that they have the opportunity to stop this ban in its tracks on Nov. 5,” Brenzel said. “But it's a disservice to Florida's women that they're going to have to live for even a period of a few months with this ban in place and we're going to see people suffer because of that.”

Abortion is regulated by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which was tight-lipped about plans to enforce the six-week ban. AHCA recently slapped clinics with close to $500,000 in fines after inspectors paid surprise visits to enforce a new requirement from 2022 that patients must wait 24 hours after a doctor’s office visit before they can have an abortion.

“As always, the Agency expects providers to comply with Florida law and we'll be adding the new abortion requirements to our survey process,” AHCA spokesperson Alecia Collins wrote in an email this week, when asked about how the agency will enforce the new, stricter ban.

Laura Goodhue, who is the the executive director of Planned Parenthood in Florida, which is the largest provider in the state, believes roughly 40,000 pregnant women who otherwise would have had an abortion in Florida at one of their clinics will end up carrying a pregnancy to term or traveling outside the state. And Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, predicted 50,000 “lives will be saved” by the ban.

“We think that that's cause for celebration to have more lives,” SBA Southern regional director Caitlin Connors said. Unlike most state restrictions, more patients were aware of the new, stricter ban, Goodhue said, but that will not help the thousands of women who will learn they are out of options in Florida as of Wednesday.

“This was a big deal for them,” Goodhue said. “It was shock and dismay really, because the reality is the patients that we see now are between eight and 11 weeks.”

There are 51 licensed abortion clinics in Florida, and the new ban led Planned Parenthood and other operators to diversify the types of services they offer patients such as infertility care, behavioral health, menopause care and vasectomies.

The Women’s Choice clinic in Jacksonville has partnered with an Ohio adoption agency and will also begin sending patients to clinics owned by the same company in North Carolina and Virginia. But Flynn, the organization’s founder, said she knows that many women will not be able to make the trip, even if all expenses are paid.

“It’s going to be heartbreaking,” Flynn said. “I know there are patients who are working and they didn’t have the time to take the time off and they’re going to have the baby they didn’t want.”