Packages of Mifepristone tablets are displayed at a family planning clinic on April 13, 2023. (Photo illustration by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Democrats intend to file legislation to repeal the state law banning most abortions after six weeks’ gestation, despite not having the votes to pass such legislation, hoping to create an opportunity to talk about the ban’s aftermath.
House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell, who will sponsor the bill to undo the ban, urged Republicans to listen to the majority of voters who chose to protect abortion access in November. The new proposal would permit abortions until viability — when the fetus can survive outside the womb — which was the case before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“I’ll be honest, we understand vote counts, right? I understand the obvious math, which is that the Democrats are in the minority, and unfortunately, we don’t have numbers that we need to pass this on our own,” Driskell said during a press conference Wednesday.
“So please understand that this is providing an opportunity for a conversation, and we are challenging, inviting … our Republican colleagues to have this very important conversation because the voters certainly wanted to have this conversation this past election cycle.”
Duval County Sen. Tracy Davis filed the Senate version of the bill, SB 870.
Amendment 4, the ballot proposal to enshrine the right to abortion in Florida’s Constitution, received 57% approval from voters but fell short of the 60% required for passage.
Regardless of the preference of the majority of voters, the Republican-led Legislature is unlikely to repeal the six-week ban, with Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrating Amendment 4’s defeat at the polls following his administration’s use of state resources to quash it.
The governor credited James Uthmeier, his former chief of staff and now attorney general, for the campaign against both the abortion rights amendment and another proposal that would have legalized adults’ recreational use of marijuana.
“We would not have succeeded in that fight if it wasn’t for James’s leadership,” DeSantis said during Uthmeier’s swearing-in ceremony on Monday. He appointed his former aide to replace Ashley Moody, appointed by the governor to replace Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate.
State-reported abortion data
Still, Democrats emphasized that data from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration don’t capture the number of abortions Floridians sought, either because they went to another state for the procedure or they ordered abortion pills in the mail. Florida requires physicians to administer medication to end pregnancies.
AHCA’s latest data show a nearly 28% drop in abortions in 2024 compared to the previous year. The report was last updated on Dec. 31, meaning it may not reflect all abortions that took place in December, but shows a decline following the enactment in May of the six-week ban.
“The reality is that the rate of abortion that you’re tracking through something like AHCA is just not going to capture the full picture here,” Orlando Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani said.
“And it’s really unsettling that you’re going to have individuals work to safely end their pregnancies on their own but then, if something were to take place where they have unusual bleeding and clotting and may need to seek emergency care, they may actually avoid doing so for fear of some sort of prosecution later.”
DeSantis applauded the decrease in abortions reported by AHCA during a recent press conference in Ponte Vedra Beach, during which he promoted his budget recommendation to increase pay for law enforcement and firefighters.
“We’ve been able to save lives and people. You know, that matters to a lot of people, and it may not matter to everyone right now, but it matters to me, and we were able to do something that’s made a difference in in young people’s lives, as we’ll see as they grow up and have a chance to live the American dream,” he said.
Following enactment of the six-week ban, AHCA issued emergency rules stating that under certain circumstances — when someone’s amniotic sac breaks prematurely and the fetus does not survive — the procedure wouldn’t count as an abortion and would not need to be reported.
Eskamani worries about the lack of data from the Florida Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which analyzes pregnancy-related deaths but hasn’t issued a report since 2020, according to the Florida Department of Health website.
ProPublica uncovered deaths connected to abortion restrictions in Georgia and Texas through the states’ committees on maternal mortality.
“That accountability of data is going to be very important for all of us, and I know our team will be aggressive in getting to the most accurate and updated data that we have,” Eskamani said. “But just looking at the pattern in other states, it’s rarely going to be a positive result.”
Seeking changes to the ban’s exceptions
Another Democrat, Sen. Tina Polsky of Palm Beach and Broward counties, filed a bill, SB 288, in January expanding the exceptions in the six-week abortion ban. The bill has been assigned to three committees.
The existing exception allows abortions beyond six weeks’ gestation to save the life of the mother or if continuing the pregnancy would cause substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function. Among multiple changes, Polsky proposed extending the exception to prolong someone’s life and if carrying the pregnancy would result in a medical condition related to a major bodily function, even if the damage is not permanent.
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