Florida abortions down overall, but more are happening later and patients traveling out of state

Jake Stofan
·2 min read
94

New state numbers show Florida is seeing fewer abortion procedures since the state’s 15-week ban took effect in July.

Abortion totals from the Agency for Health Care Administration show there were about 5,200 fewer abortions in Florida between Jan.  1 and Dec.  2 of this year compared to the same time frame last year.

It’s a roughly 7% drop.

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“The entire landscape of reproductive rights in this country has been upended,” said State Rep.  Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando).

Eskamani, a former Planned Parenthood employee, noted while state data shows a drop in total abortions, out of state abortions are up 11.6% over all of last year, and there’s still a month left to go in 2022.

“Patients as far as Texas come to Florida for reproductive care and abortion access,” said Eskamani.

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For Andrew Shirvell, with Florida Voice for the Unborn, the increase is disheartening.

“Florida has clearly become an abortion destination state,” said Shirvell.

But more alarming in Shirvell’s eyes is that stats show second trimester abortions are up 21% compared to all of last year.

“Something that the 15-week abortion ban was designed to stop or at least curb dramatically. Unfortunately, we just haven’t seen the numbers bear that out,” said Shirvell.

There are some caveats in the data.

The 15-week ban has only been in effect for half the year.

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Also, there is a bit of a lag in the data, so we won’t have a full picture of how many abortions occurred until early next year.

Eskamani also points out many women are turning to alternatives for reproductive care that aren’t captured by the data.

“Google searches for medication abortion and for organizations like Plan C, which allow you to order pills online, though not legal, is something that people are doing because they don’t feel safe or are not able to go into a clinic setting anymore,” said Eskamani.

The concern for abortion access proponents, is that this data will be used to push for tighter abortion restrictions in the March legislative session.

The  governor has said he’s waiting for the Florida Supreme Court to weigh in on the 15-week law before going further.

There’s been no movement in that case since Sept. 30.

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