MIAMI — It was a busy day, as usual, at the Planned Parenthood clinic tucked away in the Golden Glades area of Miami two days after Florida’s Supreme Court upheld a law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. What made the day unusual was many women were alarmed and “freaking out” over the ban.
“I had a patient an hour ago, who was in her eighth or ninth week of pregnancy, concerned that we were going to turn her away,” said Dr. Chelsea Daniels, a physician with Planned Parenthood. “There is a lot of confusion and terror.”
Daniels has been shuttling between procedures and media interviews in her office since news of the ban, which takes effect May 1, broke Monday.
Florida was one of the last states in the Southeastern part of the country where abortion was still largely accessible — providing the service not just to Floridians, but also to those living in nearby states where abortion had already been limited or banned.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion access, over 9,300 people traveled to Florida from other states to get abortion care last year — more than double the number in 2020.
But of the 80,000 abortions that took place in the state last year, the majority were still for Floridians, Daniels said.
Now, those who are pregnant are feeling confusion and uncertainty.
A 20-year-old abortion seeker, who was waiting to be seen by a doctor at Planned Parenthood and requested anonymity, told NBC News that even though the new law allows abortions for cases of rape or incest, many women will still be “forced to care for a child they don’t want.”
“Most people don’t want to go to the police and show proof they were being raped,” she said.
A 29-year-old woman at the clinic, who also requested to remain anonymous, was recovering from the procedure and said she had just heard news of the ban the day before.
“I was puzzled,” she said. “I couldn’t understand how this could happen.”
Read the full article here
