The state Supreme Court’s Monday ruling to uphold the current 15-week ban and allow a six-week ban to take effect May 1 will effectively shut off abortion access in the South, where neighboring states already enforce near-total abortion bans or severe restrictions.
Right now, Florida is essentially an island surrounded by states with much tighter abortion restrictions or outright bans. There were 84,000 abortions performed in Florida last year, including thousands for women who needed to travel from out of state, according to state data.
Come May 1, almost all of those women will need to find somewhere else to go.
“The Southeast can’t absorb that number with the clinics that are available,” said Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates.
Advocates warn the law will shutter clinics and force women to travel hundreds of miles across state lines — if they can afford it. Travel is a significant barrier for low-income women, who may wind up carrying their pregnancy to term regardless of complications.
For people living in the southern part of the Sunshine State, the closest clinic where someone can get an abortion after six weeks is in Charlotte, N.C., an 11-hour drive from Miami.
North Carolina bans abortion after 12 weeks and six days of gestation, while also requiring a 72-hour waiting period.
For someone who needs an abortion beyond 12 weeks, the closest states are likely Virginia or Illinois.
Abortion funds, which help cover expenses for people who need to travel, said there just aren’t enough resources to help everyone, and people who need care will be left behind.
“People who need abortions will not have them with this ban. I think that’s just inevitable,” said McKenna Kelley, a board member with the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund. “We’re cutting off the remaining place that people could go to access abortion in the Southeast. And I think that’s going to have really negative consequences.”
