Ron DeSantis will pursue a complete abortion ban in Florida during his second term. It’s why he has steadfastly refused to answer questions about his efforts to eliminate reproductive freedoms. Headlines from states where restrictive abortion bans have already gone into effect shed light on the dangerous future that women and healthcare providers would be subject to under a second DeSantis term.
Leaders across Florida have been demanding answers from Ron DeSantis on his plans to further roll back reproductive freedoms since his ominous threat 110 days ago, but without a response.
DeSantis’ extreme anti-choice agenda means doctors and nurses could be thrown in jail for providing reproductive medical care – a brutal reality DeSantis made clear he would enforce when he suspended an elected State Attorney who said he was not going to prosecute Floridians accessing or providing reproductive health care. DeSantis is even willing to violate religious liberties and freedom of speech in his pursuits to force his ban on Floridians.
The abortion story Ron DeSantis doesn’t want you to hear
Shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Ron DeSantis’ current extreme 15-week abortion ban went into effect.
Since then, the dangers and consequences of that ban have been felt by millions of women in Florida with fewer freedoms than they had a year ago. That includes a sixteen-year-old Florida girl with no parents who was ruled not “sufficiently mature” to decide to have an abortion. It also includes an adolescent incest survivor, who was forced to leave the ‘free state of Florida’ for care.
“Horror stories like these are a predictable outcome of DeSantis’ extreme abortion ban,” Kobie Christian, spokesperson for the Florida Democratic Party said. “Instead of addressing real, growing problems in Florida like the insurance or housing crises, DeSantis is creating problems by focusing on divisive culture wars which are now forcing victims of rape and incest to escape Florida in order to access the healthcare they need – or even worse not get it at all.”
Florida Politics: The abortion story that could shift the tide in Florida
- When a middle school-aged incest victim can’t get an abortion in Florida, it resonates.
- if anything can shift the nearly inevitable tide, it’s news this week of a young girl who was unable to terminate a pregnancy that resulted from incest.
- As Buzzfeed first reported, an incest victim reportedly in middle school was unable to obtain an abortion in Florida because she was beyond the 15-week threshold allowable for the procedure in the state. Buzzfeed reported that Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida said the child had to travel “at least two, three states away” to terminate her pregnancy.
- It’s easy to dismiss the abortion talk as rhetoric, until there is a middle school-aged student, subjected to abuse that resulted in an unwanted pregnancy, to make it a real-life tragedy.
- As the top Republican in Florida, the buck stops with DeSantis. He signed the state’s latest abortion restriction, which provides exceptions for saving the mother’s life, preventing serious injury or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality, but not in cases of rape or incest.
- There is no hiding from his role in shaping this restrictive legislation.
- So the only hope for those who want to protect a woman’s access to safe and legal abortion is to elect the only candidate for Governor who would veto further restrictions, and work to roll back the 15-week ban.
- Public opinion is against DeSantis on this issue. A summer poll from the University of South Florida found that 57% of Floridians disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Just 9% of Floridians favor an abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest. Even with exceptions, only 21% support a ban. The poll found that just 15% of respondents favored a ban after 15-weeks gestation.
- Under Florida’s law, victims impregnated through rape or incest have just a small window to end their pregnancies. It’s not a stretch to argue that subjects those victims to further trauma.
BuzzFeed: At Least Two Young Victims Of Incest Were Denied Abortions In Florida And Forced To Travel For Care, Planned Parenthood Said
- At least two children who were victims of incest have been denied abortions in Florida since the state instituted its 15-week ban in July, the local Planned Parenthood chapter told BuzzFeed News.
- There are no exceptions for rape or incest, and violators of the law could face up to five years in prison.
- “We’ve had at least two young people that were survivors of incest that were past the 15-week mark that we had to send to another state,” Laura Goodhue, vice president of public policy for Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida, told BuzzFeed News. In order to obtain the procedure, both of the patients had to travel “at least two, three states away,” she said.
- The 15-week ban came as neighboring states like Georgia and Alabama have almost or completely banned abortion. Since June, Florida clinics near the state’s border have seen more than double the typical number of patients, Alexandra Mandado, president of Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida, said in a virtual press conference on Wednesday.
- At their clinics, Mandado said, they are also seeing an increase in young people seeking abortions, as well as an increase in survivors of domestic abuse, rape, and incest, “none of whom have any say of their own bodies if they are over 15 weeks pregnant,” she said. “We are seeing patients who did not know that they were past 15 weeks of pregnancy.”
