Consulting police and lawyers has become a part of Florida abortion providers’ work

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 16 states already require providers to gather information about a patient’s reason for seeking an abortion, with varying degrees of specificity. Many of those states now have near-total abortion bans or six-week bans, which is before many people know they are pregnant. (Getty Images)Miami family medicine physician Chelsea Daniels couldn’t help a 20-year-old patient seeking an abortion about a month ago she because she lacked the documentation the state requires to terminate pregnancies resulting from rape.

Daniels, who works at a Planned Parenthood clinic, and three other physicians talked about how Florida’s six-week abortion ban has prevented them from providing care during a press conference Wednesday held by Floridians Protecting Freedom, sponsor of the proposed state constitutional amendment that would protect abortion access until viability.

The 20-year-old patient only spoke Spanish, Daniels said, and police turned her away when she tried to report the crime on the patient’s behalf because the attack had happened in a different county. That woman had to travel out of Florida to get the abortion, Daniels said.

Under state law, people who get pregnant as a result of rape, incest, or human trafficking can secure abortions up to 15 weeks, but they must show a restraining order, police report, medical record, or court document showing that a crime is the reason they want to terminate the pregnancy.

“I am not a lawyer. I am not a member of the police force, and yet I and my colleagues are being asked to look at documentation like this,” Daniels said.

Data outlines how often the exceptions lead to abortions

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration keeps track of the reasons people get abortions. The latest data show four people terminated their pregnancies in the first trimester because of incest, 68 abortions took place because of rape, and human trafficking has not been cited as a reason for the procedure. The six-week abortion ban went into effect on May 1, and the AHCA report includes abortions performed since the beginning of the year.

Learn about Florida’s pregnancy care laws and efforts to provide transparent health care here: pic.twitter.com/lWNfyWEIW4

— Florida AHCA (@AHCA_FL) September 9, 2024

“Abortions are available before a child’s heartbeat is detected, and in cases of rape or incest, and at all points in pregnancy to save the life and health of the mother,” a voice narrates in a video AHCA posted directing people to a controversial webpage claiming the abortion-rights Amendment 4 “threatens women’s safety.”

Michelle Quesada, vice president for communications for Planned Parenthood of Southeast and North Florida, said a patient who was seven weeks pregnant and reported being raped didn’t know that she had to provide documentation about the crime.

Quesada said she called the police to discuss what kinds of documents would meet the criteria for the exception after the patient reported the crime. The officer informed Quesada that the only information the clinic could obtain at the time was a case number, she said.

Other exceptions in the state’s six-week abortion ban require two doctors to certify that the termination of the pregnancy is necessary to “save the pregnant woman’s life or avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.” A single physician can approve the procedure if no other doctor is available.

Abortions to the third trimester are legal if the fetus has a fatal abnormality.

The accounts physicians shared during the press conference echoed those of 25 physicians, genetic counselors, and clinicians at the center of a report Physicians for Human Rights published Tuesday. That report concluded that the state’s abortion restrictions have created an “unworkable legal landscape.”

Partaking in lengthy discussions about patients falling in grey areas of the abortion ban’s exceptions delays care for all patients, Daniels said.

“When I see a patient who I think may meet an exception, rather than being able to just use the medical part of my brain, I’m suddenly having to delay care for that patient and, realistically, delay care for every single one of the other patients on my schedule that day as I call the lawyers,” she said. “And lawyers are extremely helpful, but I’m suddenly having a legal conversation, and they’re suddenly having a medical conversation.”

But Tammy McCarus, an OB-GYN from an Orlando suburb, wrote in a statement to Florida Phoenix that the current abortion ban allows her to treat patients. She is a member of Florida Physicians Against Amendment 4.

“The truth is, while Florida’s current law allows me to intervene and care for my patients at any time in pregnancy if they are facing serious complications, Amendment 4 would eliminate vital health and safety standards for women obtaining abortion and even permit non-doctors to refer for the procedure.”

The proponents of Amendment 4 have denied that the amendment would undo safety standards because the amendment targets laws that prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion. They also say that healthcare providers already have to abide by their specialties’ scope of practice, meaning that those without training to perform an abortion wouldn’t be able to do so.

“Terms like health and healthcare provider are terms that are well established across Florida’s legal framework, ensuring that their meetings are neither vague nor open to expansive interpretation,” said Keisha Mulfort, the senior communications strategist for the ACLU of Florida. “You wouldn’t go to a dentist for heart surgery, nor would you go to a massage therapist for abortion care.”