A law that restricts abortions at six weeks of pregnancy — which is often when a fetal heartbeat can be detected — is set to take effect in Florida on Wednesday.
The six-week abortion restriction is going into effect after the Florida Supreme Court issued a ruling on April 1 upholding the state’s 15-week abortion restriction. The court’s decision to allow the 15-week limit to stand cleared the way for the state’s six week abortion limit to take effect. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed the six-week Heartbeat Bill in April 2023, which contains exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. The state Supreme Court allowed the six-week limit to remain blocked until it could rule on the 15-week limit.
Florida has been an abortion destination in the South, as nine states in the region have passed near-total abortion restrictions, and Georgia and South Carolina have passed six-week restrictions since the Supreme Court handed down its Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion to individual states. Before Dobbs, abortion was legal in Florida up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
In 2023, more than 84,000 women had abortions in Florida, which is higher than most states. Out of those women, 7,736 reported being from out of state, up from 6,726 in 2022, according to data from the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). The AHCA has already recorded 14,735 abortions this year to date, 1,316 of which were for women from out of state.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute released data that found that one of every three abortions in the South, and one in 12 across the United States, occurred in Florida. Guttmacher also reported a higher number of women coming from out of state to get abortions in Florida, putting the figure at more than 9,000.
With Florida joining the ranks of southern states with tighter abortion laws, women are less likely to travel from surrounding states to get abortions.
“The closest abortion clinic for someone living at Florida’s southernmost tip will be a 14-hour drive away in Charlotte. A patient whose pregnancy has progressed beyond 12 weeks, the point at which North Carolina bans abortion, will have to drive 17 hours, to southern Virginia,” The Washington Post reported.
Kelly Flynn, the president and chief executive of A Woman’s Choice, a network of abortion clinics, told The Post that “people are scrambling” to get abortions before the law takes effect.
“We’re telling them, ‘Hey, it’s going to be busy.’ We don’t want them to walk in blindsided,” Flynn said.
When the Florida Supreme Court handed down its decision upholding the 15-week restriction and clearing the way for the six-week restriction, it also issued a decision allowing a proposed amendment that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution to appear on the ballot in November.
The proposed amendment is backed by Floridians Protecting Freedom — a coalition of left-wing groups including Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida — and bars the state from restricting abortion before viability (approximately 24 weeks) or “when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
If Florida voters pass the measure with at least 60 percent support in November, the amendment would undo the six-week limit and basically create a permanent right to abortion in the state that could only be undone with another ballot measure or an uphill legal battle.
The abortion activists backing the measure surpassed the number of required signatures in January, and the measure will appear as “Amendment 4” on the general election ballot, according to state officials.
President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign notably released a memo moments after the Florida Supreme Court decisions were released, saying it sees the state as winnable because of its ongoing strategy to galvanize Democrats around the issue of abortion. Last week, Biden visited Tampa to campaign on abortion, and Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to visit Jacksonville on Wednesday to give a pro-abortion speech as the six-week restriction takes effect, The Post reported.
DeSantis called the six-week restriction a “noble effort” on Tuesday and also said he is not concerned about Democrats using abortion to take back Florida in November. Former President Donald Trump notably led the state by 370,000 votes in 2020, and Republicans boast a nearly 900,000 voter registration advantage over Democrats in the state as of March 31, according to the Florida Division of Elections.
“I welcome Biden-Harris to spend a lot of money in Florida. Light up the airwaves. Do it. Light it on fire,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Tampa. “We are fine with you doing that here. But I can confidently predict that you’ll see Republican victories not just at the top of the ticket, but up and down the ballot.”
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.