Dr. Cherise Felix said a recent patient screamed and swore at her and ended up hugging her, grateful that she would no longer have to carry the baby she had planned to die in.
Felix performed the abortion at a family planning clinic in Florida, which banned abortions at six weeks of pregnancy on May 1. Because of the limited health exceptions to abortion laws, she was able to see the patient, who was approximately 17 weeks pregnant. But patients who miscarried were turned away by another gynecologist before coming to the clinic, something Felix said has happened regularly since the ban.
“They have to walk around carrying pregnant women who have passed away, and it was a much-wanted pregnancy, but doctors are reluctant to treat them because the law is so unstable and constantly changing. No,” Felix told The State Newsroom.
She is one of many Florida doctors who say the six-week ban has disrupted reproductive health care, and more than 850 who supported a citizen-led ballot initiative to restore abortion rights this week. He is one of the doctors in If it receives 60% of the vote, the Fourth Amendment would legalize abortion until the fetus is viable, and thereafter for fetal and maternal health issues.
But if it fails, advocates say access to reproductive health will be further reduced across the Southeast, which relied on Florida for access after Roe v. Wade is overturned in 2022. I’m predicting. The strong wall of abortion bans in the South includes a near-total ban in Alabama, as well as in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. Florida, Georgia and South Carolina have imposed six-week curfews. North Carolina imposes a 12-week curfew.
“I hope it passes. 60% is very hopeful, but I think the alternative is scarier,” Felix said. “If you allow government intervention in testing sites, this is not going to end there. … It is starting to creep into people who never thought they would participate in family planning … but it is not just medical care. It’s starting to spread into the field.”
How reproductive access is already changing in Florida and beyond.
Gynecologists and hospitals remain confused and fearful about Florida’s abortion ban, even though health department guidelines say it does not prevent them from managing miscarriages or treating certain conditions.
At a recent press conference hosted by Floridians Protecting Freedom, which leads the “Yes on 4” campaign, Miami-based obstetrician-gynecologist Chelsea Daniels, M.D., said she recently examined patients who were eight weeks pregnant, and all four He said he underwent four ultrasounds from different doctors. Although it showed that her pregnancy was not growing, they still did not perform an abortion.
“She needed an abortion because the risk of infection and bleeding increases with each passing day,” said Daniels, who works for family planning organizations in South, East and North Florida. “I can understand why the other four doctors turned her down. They were afraid. The exception criteria is very narrow and cannot accommodate every case. If the state challenges the decision, the doctor could be fined, lose his license, and go to prison.The case was very clear medically, but legally. It was vague.”
Felix will work for the same affiliated company as Daniels, a Tennessee native who banned abortions in 2022. She told States Newsroom it was a career-coming full-circle moment. This is because we have seen the slow politicization of routine miscarriage procedures such as common methods such as dilation and curettage. To clean a patient’s uterus when the body has not expelled all fetal tissue. She said that when she first became an obstetrician-gynecologist and worked in a hospital, miscarriage management was provided within the hospital, then with the support of an ethics committee, and then referred to a high-risk specialist, and recently said that in their experience, miscarriage management was isolated. Abortion clinic.
“The management of miscarriage is still the management of abortion,” Felix says. “It’s just a spontaneous miscarriage. So that code gets sent to the insurance company. That raises a flag.”
Health care providers told State Newsroom they are also turning away many patients who try to terminate their pregnancies after six weeks, before many even realize they are pregnant. Planned Parenthood and independent abortion clinics in Florida have developed a system to help coordinate patients with clinics in other states. This typically involves complex variables that lead patients to every corner of the United States.
Daniels told States Newsroom that she travels to Virginia and Maryland most weekends for abortions, and that many of her patients there end up coming from Florida.
“I was just there over the weekend, but the number of Floridians I saw here in Miami were coming from Fort Lauderdale, and both of us, giving and receiving things… I had to travel 1,200 miles to get the job done.”We actually live and work far from each other, mind you,” Daniels said. “It feels like a farce and it feels like we can’t believe this is the world we live in.”
Daniels said he believes many people are continuing pregnancies they wanted to end and that no single state will be able to accommodate the approximately 100,000 patients who will receive abortions in Florida in 2023. are. Many people are unable to travel due to a lack of vacation, childcare, and child care. Money and abortion funds are running out. Some people turn to online abortion pill websites like Aid Access, whose founder, Dr. Rebecca Gomparts, told State Newsroom that since the ban went into effect, an average of 700 abortions per month have been completed. He said abortion prescriptions are being sent to Floridians slightly less than before. A few months.
The family planning clinic remains open in Florida and focuses on other important reproductive health services. But some independent abortion clinics that remain open through November say they may be forced to close, which would leave them open to the limited types of abortion care still allowed under Florida law. access is likely to decrease further.
Amber Gavin, vice president of advocacy and operations at A Woman’s Choice Clinic, said the Jacksonville clinic only sees about one-third of the patients it saw before the ban, and many Florida He said he is referring patients to North Carolina and North Carolina. Virginia location. Before the ban, the clinic had patients from all over the country, but especially from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, she said. Ta.
She told State Newsroom that A Woman’s Choice encourages patients to vote for the Fourth Amendment. This is because, given clinics’ declining profits, it is unclear whether they will be able to continue operating even if the clinic fails.
“Our staff are doing the best they can, but having to turn patients away or tell them we don’t have the funds is really taxing and demoralizing,” Gavin said.
Obstacles to restoring access to abortion
For Florida’s Amendment 4 to succeed, it would need to clear a supermajority vote, the highest standard for abortion rights ballot measures to date. Floridians Defending Freedom also faces growing opposition from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration. These included trying to force a story about a terminally ill cancer patient off the air and launching a voter fraud investigation that prompted a lawsuit from abortion opponents seeking to trigger the amendment. Ballots even though Floridians have already started voting. Recent polls have found support for the amendment at 60%, although some polls have it lower.
Leaders of the abortion rights voting effort say they have raised $90 million so far, but despite the many obstacles, including two recent hurricanes, the path to victory remains uncertain. I can see it. The campaign has intentionally been bipartisan in its messaging, recognizing that it needs to appeal to supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to win the necessary 60% of the vote. At a recent press conference hosted by the Fairness Project, which has committed $30 million this cycle to support abortion rights voting measures campaigns across the country, Loren Brenzel, Florida’s Defend Freedom campaign director, said the state objected to the idea that the amendment would be a voting mechanism for Democrats. Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris and the Vote No Campaign.
“If we don’t repeal this November, the abortion ban will remain in place for decades to come,” Brenzel said. “(The amendment) has nothing to do with other races because the policy is currently failing Floridians.”
Abortion opponents, who are leading an expensive “4 No Vote” campaign, are trying to rally religious Floridians to oppose the amendment, which would require a growing fetus to It restricts abortions at the point at which a woman can survive outside the womb (an estimated 24 weeks). Anti-abortion campaigns argue that the amendment’s unspecified restrictions and broad health exceptions could lead to “unrestricted” abortions.
The full text of the proposed amendment states: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, or delay abortion before viability or if, in the judgment of the patient’s health care provider, is necessary to protect the health of the patient.” , or shall not be restricted.”
The “4 to Vote No” campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Shortly after Yes on 4’s “Caroline” ad first aired on Oct. 1, the Florida Department of Health sent cease-and-desist letters to local television stations calling it “completely false” and forcing them to run the ad. He threatened to file criminal charges against the broadcaster who continued to do so. . In it, a 40-year-old Tampa mother of a 4-year-old said she was about 17 weeks pregnant with her second child in April 2022 when she discovered she had a terminal brain tumor. Doctors gave her one year to live with aggressive treatment, but the situation was extremely difficult. If she stays pregnant, it’s only a matter of time. Caroline, who asked that her last name not be used to protect her privacy, said the abortion was an accomplishment beyond a one-year prognosis that she could not have had now.
“When I had mine, I said to my husband, ‘Can you imagine if we lived in a state that didn’t offer this?'” Caroline told State Newsroom told. “I was in the ICU. I couldn’t fly. I couldn’t drive. And then everything fell apart in Florida. It was so brutal for me, like, how can something so cruel?” It was an eye-opener.”
The state argues that Caroline’s situation could not have been avoided even under the ban. But doctors report that the law is difficult for hospitals to interpret, requires additional visits, and takes time that patients can’t afford. The state Surgeon General’s cease-and-desist letter asserts that the two-physician requirement “is waived in the case of emergency medical procedures.” But many doctors say it’s unclear what constitutes an emergency medical procedure. A federal lawsuit filed by pro-abortion organizers against the state health department to stop threatening broadcasters includes an obstetrician-gynecologist and a maternal health expert who say they did not perform an abortion on Caroline in Florida. House affidavit included.
“Although the abortion was medically necessary because the cancer was terminal, the abortion would not save the patient’s life and therefore may be illegal under Florida law.”・Written by Sherry Xiaoying Tian, MD, who works at Parenthood of Southeast. Genesis Maternal and Child Medical Centers in North Florida and Tucson, Arizona;
A federal judge last week temporarily blocked the DeSantis administration from forcing TV stations to stop airing ads. Court records show the DeSantis administration was directly behind the effort to threaten broadcasters with criminal charges. “I want to use my voice while I have it,” Caroline told State Newsroom, noting that she temporarily lost the ability to speak when she was first diagnosed with a brain tumor.
“That was one of the first things I lost with this diagnosis, and luckily I’ve got it back so far,” Caroline said. “I want to do this for my daughter so she can have the same rights as me and my mother and for all patients diagnosed with cancer. For.”
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