A stricter abortion law is set to take effect in Florida on Wednesday — dropping the state’s 15-week ban to a six-week ban — and it will likely affect thousands of people seeking abortion care within the first month alone.
Florida has become a key abortion access point amid widespread restrictions that have taken hold in the region in the two years since the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade. It’s also one of the country’s most populous states.
Last year, 1 of every 3 abortions in the South — and about 1 in every 12 nationwide — happened in Florida, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization focused on sexual and reproductive health that supports abortion rights. In 2023, there were about 7,000 abortions in Florida each month, and more than 9,000 people traveled from other states to get an abortion in Florida throughout the year, the data shows.
Many women don’t know that they’re pregnant six weeks after their last menstrual period, and other states that have enacted laws with this early gestation limit saw significant cuts to abortion care. In Texas, the number of abortions provided within the formal health-care system dropped by about half after a six-week abortion ban took effect in 2021, and there were thousands more births than expected in the following year. In South Carolina, there was a 70% decrease in abortions just one month after the state enforced a six-week limit.
First off, I’m sorry for what you went through.
There is a large issue with laws like these, they often contain grandiose statements and vagaries that make it difficult for physicians to know what’s legal and what isn’t. So a lot of the difficulty in laws like this is that Doctors don’t know specifically what is and isn’t illegal and may be afraid to execute procedures that may be legal by the letter of the law out of fear from over zealous prosecutors.