Pro-reproductive rights organizations including Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union on Friday took their challenge of Florida’s 15-week abortion ban to the Florida Supreme Court, asking the court to hear their argument and block the law.
HB5, which took effect July 1, bans most abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. A judge in early July issued an order temporarily halting the law. The state quickly appealed, causing it to be reinstated.
“Life is a sacred gift worthy of our protection, and I am proud to sign this great piece of legislation, which represents the most significant protections for life in the state’s modern history,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis after signing the bill in April.
The law makes exceptions to save the mother from death or serious injury or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality, defined as a condition that will result in death at birth or immediately after.
“These exceptions are very narrow, and it forces our doctors to choose between guessing what would constitute a threat to maternal life and what constitutes a fatal fetal abnormality, or denying that care,” said Dr. Robyn Schickler, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida.
Schickler said the law’s vagueness means some medical professionals may be afraid to offer abortions even when they are medically necessary, for fear of being charged with a felony and going to jail.
For example, abortions are a medical tool used to help women who are having miscarriages safely pass the fetus without bleeding to death, Schickler said.
Patients are also given the option of abortion to prevent severe infections and very heavy bleeding when their water breaks too early. In these cases, the fetus has a low chance of surviving, so the risk of continuing without an abortion often outweighs the benefits, she said.
“Doctors are, because of this law, afraid to offer the choice of termination, which means that the person who is pregnant could have their life threatened when they didn’t need to,” Schickler said.
Schickler, along with other providers and advocates, in a press call on Friday argued the law violates a privacy clause in the state’s constitution, which says, “every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as otherwise provided herein.”
Florida’s Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that this clause protects people’s rights to abortion. But the court has become more conservative in recent years due to appointments by DeSantis and former Gov. Rick Scott.
As recently as 2012, Florida voters rejected a Republican-led attempt to end privacy rights under the state constitution.
The supreme court has 30 days to decide whether it will take up the case.
Whitney White, staff attorney for the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, expressed hope that the court will uphold its precedent during Friday’s press call.
“Nothing in the law has changed that would warrant a departure from this long-standing history and from the existing precedents protecting abortion,” White said. “What we’re asking the Florida Supreme Court to do, quite simply, is to adhere to its own precedents and to honor the state constitution and the clearly expressed will of the people.”
Florida’s 15-week ban pales in comparison to restrictions in neighboring states, which have laws ranging from six-week cutoffs to all-out bans on abortions, with exemptions often limited to pregnancy caused by incest or rape.
Abortion laws have gotten increasingly stricter since the overturn of Roe v. Wade on June 24, which protected women’s federal constitutional right to abortion.
State abortion providers say they’re seeing longer waits in their clinics as women across the Southeast flock to Florida. The recently approved 24-hour waiting period for abortions in Florida has further exacerbated demand.
Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro, executive director of the abortion fund and advocacy organization Florida Access Network, says the number of out-of-state travelers seeking financial assistance has increased.
Last year, about 15% of the people seeking aid were from out-of-state; this year, it has been 35%, Piñeiro said on the press call.
“It is impossible to be able to support the level of need that every single person has,” Piñeiro said.
ccatherman@orlandosentinel.com; @CECatherman Twitter
