Orlando, Florida. >> In the month since Florida imposed a six-week abortion ban, Lana’e Hernandez has helped nearly 200 women figure out how to terminate later pregnancies, work that sometimes means securing plane tickets, hotel rooms and money to pay for clinics in places as far away as Illinois.
Her clients include a first-time mother who terminated her pregnancy due to severe fetal health issues and a single mother of five unable to support another baby. She said some of her clients have never left the state before or traveled by plane.
“This may very well be one of the most difficult decisions our patients have ever had to face in their lives, and our government has put them in a position where they need to abandon their support system and travel across the country and incur huge expenses,” said Hernández. “I wish I could be at the airport and take them to the gate.”
Hernandez’s experiences underscore the many ways that Florida’s new abortion rules have made it more difficult for women and health care providers to grapple with the question of how to terminate a pregnancy.
While some women travel, others turn to telehealth appointments with out-of-state doctors to obtain abortion-inducing medications. Their decisions are fraught with emotions and logistical difficulties – and it is unclear how long these choices can be sustained in the face of financial and legal challenges.
Hernandez has insight into the matter as a patient navigator for Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida — a job that has become increasingly common since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Fourteen states now ban it fully, with limited restrictions. exceptions. Three states, including Florida, ban it six weeks from the first day of a pregnant woman’s last period, with few exceptions.
Florida has banned abortions for 15 weeks since 2022 and, before that, allowed them up to 24 weeks.
Since Florida’s new ban took effect on May 1, some women have managed to get abortions within the state’s limit, providers say, while some who only know they are pregnant after six weeks have chosen to continue with an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy. .
State abortion data for May is not yet complete, so the exact impact of the new rule is unclear.
The November elections could also change access to abortion. Residents will be asked to vote on Amendment 4, which would make abortion constitutionally protected in Florida until viability – about 24 weeks – if 60% of voters say yes.
Supporters of Florida’s six-week ban say they are confident it will drastically reduce the number of abortions performed by state residents, despite efforts to prevent it.
“In the vast majority of cases, this will have by far a large impact, as it has in other states,” said Mat Staver, founder of the pro-life Liberty Counsel. “Florida will not be an abortion destination like it was before this law.”
Florida medical providers performed more than 84,000 abortions last year, including nearly 8,000 for people who traveled from out of state.
Organizations called abortion funds aim to help women get around state bans. In 2023, these funds provided more than $36 million for abortions and more than $10 million for logistical support across the country, according to the National Abortion Fund Network.
But rising costs have made it impossible to fully meet the need, said Stephanie Loraine Pineiro, executive director of the Florida Access Network abortion fund, at a press conference hosted by the national network on Monday.
“Florida’s ban forces Floridians and people across the Southeast to travel further, depleting funds for travel and practical support even faster,” Pineiro said.
Pineiro said his fund has helped 150 people in the last month, but the fund can only cover, on average, about 50% of requested expenses.
Ushma Upadhyay, a professor in the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program at the University of California, San Francisco, believes that because of the new restrictions, many women in Florida have obtained or will obtain abortion-inducing pills online.
According to current legislation, this is a viable option, but overlapping rules make the situation complicated. Although the state prohibits prescribing abortion medications via telehealth, the ban applies to doctors, not the women themselves.
Certain states have passed “shield laws” that aim to protect doctors licensed in that state from prosecution for prescribing abortion pills to people in states where it is illegal. Online pharmacies fill and mail these prescriptions.
Nearly 8,000 people a month in states with abortion bans or restrictions are prescribed and mailed abortion pills under protection laws, according to estimates from the Planned Parenthood Society’s #WeCount project, a national abortion reporting effort. One of the largest providers, Aid Access, charges $150 or less.
“Telehealth really removes a lot of barriers to abortion,” said Upadhyay, who is also co-chair of #WeCount. “Patients don’t even have to take time off work or find child care.”
Currently, Florida women who terminate pregnancies in this way do not face legal action, nor do the people who help them. Gov. Ron DeSantis previously said pregnant women who abort in violation of Florida law will not be criminally charged, in accordance with a previous state Supreme Court ruling.
However, the telehealth prescription movement alarms people who support abortion bans. Liberty Counsel’s Staver is “optimistic” the practice will be banned in the future.
“I think it’s a big concern,” Staver said. “It makes no sense for…Florida to pass a law that regulates physical facilities, but at the same time someone knowingly sends drugs to Florida that are specifically designed to violate the law.”
The US Supreme Court on Thursday issued a ruling preserving access to the drug mifepristone, which is used in many abortions, but further legal challenges are expected.
Dr. William Lile — a North Florida obstetrician and gynecologist who calls himself “ProLife Doc” and believes life begins at conception — said he is concerned about the health of women who take pills without in-person testing to confirm how advanced their pregnancy is. . and to rule out conditions such as ectopic pregnancy.
The condition, when a fertilized egg grows outside the uterus, is rare but can be fatal. A ruptured ectopic pregnancy causes symptoms similar to a miscarriage, so women taking the pill may not realize what’s really happening, he said.
“We have already had cases of women who were harmed,” said Lile. “They thought they were taking the pill to have an abortion, but in reality they were part of that 1% who had an ectopic pregnancy and that is delaying them in seeking healthcare.”
Generally, these pills are safe to take up to 10 weeks into pregnancy, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which notes that while side effects are common, serious adverse reactions are rare.
However, not everyone can travel or get pills. The ban hit some women hard.
Middlebury College researchers estimate that the average Florida resident now lives nearly 600 miles from the nearest clinic offering abortions after six weeks, up from the average of 20 miles before the ban. Appointment wait times increased at about 30% of clinics in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., the closest states where abortion is legal after six weeks of pregnancy.
“I’m hearing people say, ‘Well, yes, I have [an abortion], but I went first to Georgia and then to Ohio, and part of my rent hasn’t been paid and I don’t know where I’m going to live,” said Jenice Fountain, executive director of the Yellowhammer Fund of Alabama. , during Monday’s press conference. “This is not a victory.”
Robyn Schickler, medical director of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, said some women, aware of the new law, make appointments quickly and get abortions within the new legal deadline. Others can take the time and pay at least some of the costs of an out-of-state trip.
But she is haunted by the patients she cannot help.
“No matter how much you try to help, some patients, for various reasons, cannot leave. These are the most disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals forced to continue pregnancies,” said Schickler.
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Distributed by Tribune Content Agency
