Providers prepare for perils of new 6-week abortion ban that starts Wednesday

Dr. Jeffrey Litt has been delivering babies in Palm Beach County for so long that now he finds himself meeting some of them, grown up, when they come to him to deliver their own babies.

For all the nearly four decades that he has been practicing here and the generations of lives he has brought into the world, he can barely remember a time when abortion care was illegal — he was a child himself then.

Litt is among thousands of providers across the state preparing for those conditions now, as Florida’s six-week abortion ban — effectively, reproductive health advocates say, a ban on all abortions — goes into effect today.

He can’t imagine all of the consequences the ban will bring, but he is certain of this:

“Unnecessary, life-threatening complications will occur because of it,” Litt said Monday.

The law will ban abortions at a stage of pregnancy at which most women have not yet learned they are pregnant, providers say, leading forced and dangerous pregnancies to be carried to term. At the same time, Litt says, it will impose conditions antithetical to health care, putting providers in positions that challenge their medical judgment and ethics.

It was Litt who called her years ago, Fran Sachs remembers, to tell her that at 13 weeks her desired pregnancy was not viable. Under the law that starts today, she noted, she would have been forced to travel hundreds of miles for abortion care or continue the pregnancy until she miscarried.

With the implementation of the law that starts today, Virginia is now the nearest state where abortion care is available for up to 26 weeks.

Sachs served as president of Emergency Medical Assistance Inc. for more than a decade and now is a board member of the organization, which helps women find, travel to and cover expenses for abortion care.

“It’s pivotal for people to understand that there’s still help,” she said. The organization has been preparing for the needs that the new ban will bring for months, she said. In the process, the budget for EMA, which originally helped with medical costs and car fare to local abortion care, has grown 50-fold in the past year since the implementation of the state’s previous 15-week abortion restriction, she said.

Women's health care clinics aren't closing

Abortions within six weeks of pregnancy and reproductive health care, including pregnancy testing and ultrasounds that can help determine the duration of gestation, as well as contraception remain available locally.

“Clinics will remain open. None are closing” Sachs said.

A post on the website for Presidential Women’s Center, an abortion provider in West Palm Beach, reminds women that “abortion is legal in Florida,” with a caveat: “It is crucial for you to call our office at 561-686-3859 or request an appointment online as soon as possible once you decide to terminate your pregnancy.”

Mandatory 24-hour delay also comes into play

The mandatory 24-hour delay for women seeking abortions that went into effect last year, requiring an in-person consultation with a physician a full day before returning to access abortion care, escalates the urgency, the site notes.

“There’s no other medical procedure that has that,” said Louis Silber, the center’s attorney for more than 40 years, who represented it in a case opposing an earlier version of the delay.

“It’s extremely restrictive,” said Michelle Quesada of Planned Parenthood’s South, East and North Florida centers.

“If they come tomorrow, at six weeks, we can’t (provide an abortion) because of the 24-hour delay,” she said.

The center aims to get women seeking abortions in the following day, she said.

Before Florida joined neighboring Georgia in implementing a six-week ban, the number of out-of-state patients seeking abortions at Planned Parenthood Florida clinics had quadrupled since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, she said.

The center has seen a record number of patients for all services in the past year, she said.

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Affecting not only women with undesired pregnancies but also women with complicated pregnancies, including ones with devastating fetal abnormalities and pregnancies that endanger women’s health, the restrictions also are affecting physicians.

In the past year, Quesada said, a Planned Parenthood Florida center lost a physician who moved to another state where she could care for patients as she had been trained to.

“It’s devastating for our doctors to know they have the skills and resources to provide medical care, but the law doesn’t allow them to,” she said.

And while the ability to provide abortion care is important to emergency care, Florida-based medical schools will have to refer students to out-of-state training programs to learn the procedure Litt said. This limitation is likely to worsen Florida’s existing shortage of OB-GYN physicians, Litt said.

As Planned Parenthood and Presidential Women’s Center teams as well as EMA accelerate efforts to serve local patients expeditiously and link patients to out-of-state abortion care services, Rep. Lois Frankel said, “they can only do so much.”

“This is going to affect thousands and thousands of women,” she said.

Frankel is putting her hopes on the ballot initiative going before Florida voters in November that will restore the right to abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

To pass, the measure will need to be approved by at least 60% of voters statewide.

“I do believe,” Frankel said, “when people understand, it will pass.”

Antigone Barton is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at avbarton@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida clinics still provide services including abortion under 6-week ban