Doctors race against Florida's six-week abortion ban

ORLANDO, Fla. — With just days until Florida’s six-week abortion ban takes effect on Wednesday, providers are rushing to perform as many abortions as possible while planning contingencies for a future where they will need to turn thousands of women away.

Clinics have expanded hours, prioritized ultrasounds and added appointments in these final weeks. They’ve fortified their patient navigation efforts and strengthened relationships with abortion fund groups like the Florida Access Network that provide financial and logistical support to people seeking to terminate pregnancies.

The ban has limited exceptions for rape, incest, human trafficking, the mother’s health and for fatal fetal abnormalities.

“Planned Parenthood’s motto has always been ‘care no matter what.’ And we don’t turn patients away. So this is a very devastating and tragic situation for our staff, who have to say, ‘we can’t take care of you, we have to send you someplace else,’” said Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida’s interim CEO Barbara Zdravecky.

Patient panic

As medical providers race against the clock, many patients are unaware their time is running out, said Dr. Chelsea Daniels, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health and an abortion provider in South Florida. When she tells patients about the imminent ban, she’s mostly met with shock.

“We have signs up all over the clinic, we’re having conversations with patients … But I imagine that when May 1 comes we’re going to have patients coming in farther along than six weeks and having no clue that they’re not able to get an abortion. And I think that it’s really hard to overstate the panic that people are going to feel,” said Daniels.

Florida performed over 84,000 abortions last year, including over 7,000 for women who came from elsewhere, according to state data.

The six-week ban, one of the strictest in the nation, was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023 but was only recently ruled constitutional by the state Supreme Court. Six weeks of gestation is about two weeks after a pregnant woman misses her first period.

Florida also requires two in-person visits at least 24 hours apart before someone can get an abortion. Some providers say these requirements will effectively prevent some people from getting the procedure at all.

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