Florida: Doctors express concern as 6-week abortion ban nears

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant, took effect Wednesday, and some doctors fear that women in the state no longer have access to necessary medical care.

The start of the new ban also brought Vice President Kamala Harris to Jacksonville, where she said the abortion ban is a direct result of former President Donald Trump’s appointment of three of the six U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted almost ago. two years to overturn long-standing precedent. that protected access to abortion.

“And now, in states across our nation, extremists have proposed and passed laws that criminalize doctors and punish women,” Harris said. “Laws that threaten doctors and nurses with prison sentences, even life, simply for providing reproductive care. Laws that make no exceptions in cases of rape or incest, even reviving 19th century laws.”

Dr. Leah Roberts, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist at Boca Fertility in Boca Raton, said the anti-abortion laws being enacted in Florida and other red states are being vaguely written by people who don’t understand medical science. The rules affect not only women who want therapeutic abortions, that is, procedures to terminate viable pregnancies by personal choice, but also non-viable pregnancies of women who want to have babies.

“We stand between them and their doctors and prevent them from receiving care until we literally save their lives, sometimes at the expense of their fertility,” Roberts said.

The new ban has an exception to save a woman’s life, as well as in cases of rape and incest. But Roberts said health care workers are still prevented from performing an abortion on a nonviable pregnancy that they know can become fatal (such as when the fetus is missing organs or is implanted outside the uterus) until it actually becomes mortal.

“We’re told we have to wait until the mother is septic before we can intervene,” Roberts said.

In addition to the physical danger, there is also the psychological trauma of having to carry a fetus that the mother knows will never be a healthy baby, Roberts said.

“They feel the effects for months after they are told they will never have a live birth,” Roberts said. “And it’s just horrible when you can take care of it at 20 weeks, and they can go ahead, and they can get pregnant in their next pregnancy and be able to hold their babies much sooner.”

The Biden campaign quickly blamed the “extreme” six-week ban on former president donald trump.

“Trump is worried that voters will hold him accountable for the cruelty and chaos he created. He is right. Trump tore away the rights and freedom of women in the United States. This November, voters are going to teach her a valuable lesson: don’t mess with America’s women,” President Joe Biden said in a statement about the new abortion ban.

During her speech in Jacksonville, Harris said the November election is about the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s body and about her government not telling women what they are supposed to do.

“Thanks to Donald Trump, more than 20 states ban abortion,” Harris said. “And today, this very day, at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida. As of this morning, 4 million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than last night.”

Roberts said a big problem with the ban is that doctors who perform emergency abortions have to learn the procedures performing therapeutic abortions. So if most abortions are banned, the next generation of doctors will not be able to develop the skills necessary to perform an emergency abortion.

Roberts said he worries the restrictions will also prompt veteran doctors to leave Florida, as they have in other states who have enacted abortion bans.

“We’re going to have less access to care for our general population, even if it’s just basic maternity care and normal OB/GYN care, because people are leaving,” Roberts said.

Additionally, women will have to travel far from home to obtain abortions. Florida Access Network CEO Stephanie Piñeiro said the organization, which helps fund abortions, expects costs to rise dramatically. She estimates it will cost a woman about $3,000 to travel to another state for an abortion. The closest place after 12 weeks would be Virginia or Illinois, but before 12 weeks it would be North Carolina.

“It is very exhausting and emotionally challenging to deal with these types of barriers and having to leave the house,” Piñeiro said.

The Florida Supreme Court, with five of its seven members appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, ruled 6-1 last month to uphold the state’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, clearing the path to the six-week ban. The 15 week ban, signed by DeSantis in 2022, had been applied while being challenged in court. The six-week ban, passed by the Legislature a year later, was written so that it would not take effect until a month after the 2022 law was ratified.

Republican state Sen. Erin Grall, who sponsored the six-week ban, previously mentioned Bodily autonomy should not include abortions.

“We live in a time where the consequences of our actions are an afterthought and convenience has replaced responsibility,” Grall said, “and this is unacceptable when it comes to the protection of the most vulnerable.”

Voters May Enshrine Abortion Rights in Florida Constitution After Separate State Supreme Court allowed failure a proposed constitutional amendment that will be on the November vote. The proposal says that “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the health of the patient, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.” It provides for an exception that is already in the state constitution: Parents must be notified before their minor children can have an abortion.

Florida Democrats hope young voters will vote to enshrine abortion rights as a way to combat the 900,000-voter advantage Republicans have over Democrats in the state. They hope moderate views on the ballot initiative will lead younger voters to vote Democratic when faced with the binary choice between banning abortion every six weeks or protecting abortion until it is viable.

Jayden D’Onofrio, president of the Florida Future Leaders political action committee, said Florida’s young voters have a “real opportunity to shape the electoral landscape.” Since abortion rights have prevailed in elections nationwide, he believes Florida can engage young voters to register and vote Democratic.

Nathan Mitchell, president of the Florida Atlantic University College Republicans, said he would support an outright ban on abortion and hopes the amendment does not pass. Mitchell said he has seen that most people want restrictions on abortion, generally bans within 10 to 15 weeks of gestation.

Most Republican-controlled states have adopted bans or restrictions on abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court. overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. A survey of abortion providers conducted for the Planned Parenthood Society, which advocates for abortion access, found that Florida had the second-largest increase in the total number of abortions performed since the decision. State data shows that more than 7,700 out-of-state women had abortions in Florida in 2023.

Florida Democratic leaders are encouraging women to seek help from funding and resources for abortion. On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book encouraged women to access travel funds for abortions and urged them to avoid “taking matters into their own hands.”

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Matat reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Nancy Benac contributed to this report from Washington.