ORLANDO, Fla. >> In the month since Florida imposed a six-week abortion ban, Lana’e Hernandez has helped nearly 200 women figure out how to end late-term 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 new mother who terminated a pregnancy due to serious fetal health defects and a single mother of five unable to support another baby. She said some of her clients had never left the state or traveled by plane before.
“This may be one of the most difficult decisions our patients have ever had to face, and our government has put them in a position where they need to leave their support system and travel across the country and incur massive expenses.” . “Hernández said. “I wish I could be at the airport and walk them to the boarding gate.”
Hernandez’s experiences underscore the many ways Florida’s new abortion rules have made it more difficult for women and health care providers to grapple with the question of how to end a pregnancy.
While some women travel, others use 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 options can be sustained in the face of financial and legal challenges.
Hernandez has a window into the issue 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. Currently, fourteen States ban it entirely, with limited restrictions. exceptions. Three states, including Florida, prohibit it six weeks after the first day of a pregnant woman’s last period, with few exceptions.
Florida had a ban on 15-week abortions starting in 2022 and before that allowed them up to 24 weeks..
Since Florida’s new ban went into effect on May 1, some women have managed to get abortions within the state line, providers say, while some who don’t know they are pregnant until six weeks later have chosen to continue unsuspecting pregnancies. desired or dangerous.
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 (approximately 24 weeks) if 60% of voters say yes.
Supporters of Florida’s six-week ban say they are confident it will dramatically reduce the number of abortions performed by state residents, despite efforts to evade it.
“In the vast majority of cases, by far, this is going to have a huge impact, as it has in other states,” said Mat Staver, founder of the pro-life group 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 circumvent state bans. In 2023, these funds provided more than $36 million for abortions and more than $10 million for logistical support nationwide, according to the National Abortion Fund Network.
But rising costs have made it impossible to fully meet the need, Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro, executive director of the Florida Access Network abortion fund, said at a news 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,” Piñeiro said.
Piñeiro said his fund has helped 150 people over the last month, but the fund can only cover about 50% of requested expenses on average.
Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a professor at 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 pills online.
Under current law, that is a viable option, but overlapping rules complicate the situation. While 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 being prosecuted for prescribing abortion pills to people in states where it is illegal. Online pharmacies then fill and ship these prescriptions.
Nearly 8,000 people a month in states with abortion bans or restrictions are prescribed and mailed abortion pills under protective laws, according to estimates from the Planned Parenthood Society’s #WeCount project, a national abortion information 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 their pregnancies in this way do not face prosecution, nor do the people who help them. Gov. Ron DeSantis has previously said that pregnant women who have abortions in violation of Florida law will not be criminally charged, in line with an earlier ruling by the state Supreme Court.
However, the telehealth prescribing movement alarms those who support banning abortion. Liberty Counsel’s Staver is “optimistic” that this practice will be banned in the future.
“I think it’s a major concern,” Staver said. “It doesn’t make sense that…Florida would pass a law regulating brick-and-mortar facilities and at the same time someone would intentionally ship medications to Florida that are specifically designed to violate the law.”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday issued a ruling preserving access to the drug mifepristone, which is used in many abortions, but other 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 for confirm how far along your 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 life-threatening. A ruptured ectopic pregnancy causes symptoms similar to those of an abortion, so women taking the pill may not realize what’s really happening, she said.
“We have already had cases of women who have been harmed,” Lile said. “They thought they were taking the abortion pill, but in reality they were in that 1% who had an ectopic pregnancy and that is delaying them in seeking medical attention.”
It is generally safe to take these pills until you are 10 weeks pregnant, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which notes that although side effects are common, serious adverse reactions are rare.
However, not everyone can travel or get pills. The ban has hit some women hard.
Middlebury College researchers estimate that the average Florida resident now lives nearly 600 miles from the nearest clinic that offers abortions after six weeks, compared to an average of 20 miles before the ban. Wait times for appointments have 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 hear people say, ‘Well, yeah, I had (an abortion), but first I went to Georgia and then I went to Ohio, and I didn’t pay part of the rent, 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 news conference. “That’s not a victory.”
Dr. Robyn Schickler, medical director for Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, said some women, aware of the new law, quickly make appointments and get abortions within the new legal deadline. Others can take the time and pay at least part of the costs of an out-of-state trip.
But she is tormented 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 people, forced to continue their pregnancies,” Schickler said.
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Distributed by the Tribune content agency
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