Florida Abortion Ban to Take Effect, Cutting Off Major Access Point
Kelly Flynn, the president and chief executive of A Woman’s Choice, a network of abortion clinics, said that Florida had been a place for patients from more restrictive Southern states to get the procedure
Florida has long played a significant role in the American abortion landscape, with dozens of clinics providing the procedure to tens of thousands of residents a year while also taking in patients from across the Southeast.
That era will end, at least for now, on Wednesday, when a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy will take effect. The strict new law will replace a 15-week ban and require most Floridians and other Southerners seeking the procedure to travel to Virginia or farther.
About every other state of this region prohibited or imposed wide restrictions on abortion after the Supreme Court decision on the Roe v. Wade case in June 2022; those that had few abortion providers before the judgment were hard hit. North state has not yet prohibited abortion procedures up until 12 weeks, but a 72-hour waiting period be crucial as out-of-state women would get already have problems before being able to get rid of the pregnancy.
“I am in contact with SUV’s from all around immensely worried and rightfully so about the furthest way that they can drive, looking for that basic two-state area within the nearest reasonable distance,” said Kelly Flynn, the president and CEO of a network of abortion clinics, including one of them located in Jacksonville, Fla., commenting on the place where we are.
On the contrary, the shooting volume in Florida did not go down as predicted after Governor Ron DeSantis enforced the 15-week ban in April 2022 because patients were instead referred to the nearby states which have more strict laws, or totally ban the abortions.
Factually, a part of the United States, knowledgeably, the third-most populous state: 50 clinics; recently, the clinics provided some 84,000 abortions: slightly, 8,000 of them were from non-residents. Until July 2022, Namod died in pregnancy after 3 months.
Instead of the number of abortions in Florida decreasing after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the 15-week ban into law in April 2022, as proponents had hoped, it went up because more patients were coming from Southern states with more restrictions or near-total bans.
Florida, the third-largest state by population, has about 50 clinics and last year provided some 84,000 abortions; nearly 8,000 of them were for women from outside the state. Until July 2022, Florida allowed abortions until about 24 weeks.
“We don’t want to be an abortion tourism destination,” Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, said last year.
Lawmakers and Mr. DeSantis approved the six-week ban in April 2023, when the governor was preparing to run for president. His message to Republican primary voters focused on how he had reshaped Florida’s political identity, turning it from a swing state to a beacon of right-wing policy. His campaign failed, but the policies remained.
The six-week ban was conditioned on the Florida Supreme Court first upholding the 15-week ban, which abortion rights groups had challenged. The conservative court did so on April 1, starting a 30-day countdown for the six-week ban to become law.
