On Tuesday, the last day women in Florida could receive an abortion up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, a dozen cars were parked behind the Lakeland Women’s Health Center on South Florida Avenue and an escort was walking women into and out of the clinic.
Next door, at the future site of Options for Women’s Clinic, a new two-story building is under construction at the clinic that will offer counseling services for women who either want to keep their baby or give the child up after it is born. They are currently operating in an office building a few blocks away.
Today, a ban on all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy began in Florida. The Lakeland Women’s Health Clinic declined to comment about how the impending ban has affected them in recent weeks or what they are planning for the immediate future.
At a glance
- A new state law took effect today banning abortion in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy.
- Only 4 in 10 abortions in recent years happened before six weeks gestation.
- The nearest states for abortion are now North Carolina and Virginia.
- A measure on the Nov. 5 ballot could reverse things by putting the right to abortion in the state constitution.
Officials with Planned Parenthood say the time constraint, coupled with a 24-hour waiting period, will hurt women, cutting them off from abortion access before many even realize they are pregnant. Supporters of the ban say it protects the lives of unborn children.
However, things may change again. Abortion rights supporters gathered enough petition signatures through a statewide initiative to get a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The proposed amendment says that, with exceptions for parental notification of minors: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
More than half of abortions were after 6 weeks
More than 84,000 abortions were performed in Florida last year, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration. About 7,700 of those patients came from other states.
In Polk County, 2,344 women terminated their pregnancies last year.
“Our organization predicts that more than half of those patients will no longer be able to access care with a six-week ban in place, forcing them to travel hundreds, or even thousands, of miles to a state with access or else carry a pregnancy against their will,” a news release from Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida states.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that, from 2018 to 2023, only about 41% of the approximately 459,000 abortions in Florida were performed at or before six weeks of pregnancy.
Florida is now one of 21 states where abortion is banned or strictly limited. Planned Parenthood officials say there aren’t enough states with abortion access to absorb tens of thousands of patients.
“The closest state is North Carolina, which only has access up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and a 72-hour waiting period,” the press release states. “The next closest state is Virginia, which is now the only state in the southeast that does not have an abortion ban.”
A ‘public health crisis’
Planned Parenthood officials are calling the ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy a health crisis, drastically reducing access to the procedure not just for Floridians but also people in neighboring states.
“By banning abortion after six-weeks, before many people even realize they are pregnant, politicians have succeeded in drastically accelerating our nation’s growing public health crisis by forcing millions more individuals to carry pregnancies against their will or travel hundreds of miles to access essential care,” Barbara Zdravecky, interim CEO of Planned Parenthood, said in a press release.
Planned Parenthood Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robyn Schickler said people need to ensure that Florida families and their doctors are free to make decisions that are right for them without government interference.
“As a medical provider, I am appalled at the state of reproductive health care in Florida,” Schickler said. “We are in the middle of a maternal mortality crisis and, instead of helping patients, our government would rather cling to their political ideologies in an effort to accumulate even more power.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in 2021 that rate of death for pregnant women was on the rise. A maternal death is defined by the World Health Organization as “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.”
The U.S. maternal mortality rate for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019.
For minorities, it’s alarmingly higher. The maternal mortality rate for Black women was nearly 70 deaths per 100,000 live births, two and a half times the rate for white women.
In Polk County in 2022, two women died during their pregnancies, down from three in 2021 and four in 2020.
“If the last two years have shown us anything, it’s that politicians do not understand how essential reproductive health care is,” Schickler said. “Politicians have no place in our exam rooms.”
Hospitals grapple with legal concerns
Last year, Deborah Dorbert was forced to carry a non-viable pregnancy to term and then watch the child die two hours after giving birth because of Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center legal team’s interpretation of the 2022 state law that banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy in Florida.
Former state Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, wrote the law and said it addressed situations specifically like the Dorberts’ case, with exceptions for “fatal fetal abnormalities.”
But Dorbert and her husband said they were told by a specialist that the hospital’s legal team “gathered … that the mother’s life has to be affected. So just because the baby has a life-threatening condition, until it’s a life-threatening condition to the mother, they can’t pre-term induce,” Dorbert said last year.
It’s not clear how many of Polk County’s 2,344 abortions were performed at the Lakeland Women’s Health Clinic on South Florida Avenue. Planned Parenthood’s website shows abortions cost $600 and include a pregnancy test, medications to help the patient relax during the in clinic procedure, RhoGAM, an ultrasound and STD testing if indicated.
The Planned Parenthood website notes that state law requires a 24-hour mandatory waiting period for people seeking abortion care. That means abortion patients must appear in-person for two appointments at least 24 hours apart.
“There are limited exceptions, including exceptions for victims of rape, incest, domestic violence or human trafficking (with proper documentation),” the website states. “If a patient has had a miscarriage and there is no fetal cardiac activity, the patient does not have to wait 24 hours or appear for two appointments.”
Lakeland’s Women’s Health Center’s hours were not posted online. It is located at 4444 South Florida Avenue.
Local groups gear up to offer alternatives
At the Options for Women clinic’s temporary location on Florida National Drive, the waiting room was empty and Executive Director Marilyn Paul was readying for a board meeting Tuesday evening.
She said the clinic is not an adoption agency and does not provide ongoing prenatal care throughout their pregnancy. Last year, Options for Women served more than 745 women, providing them with free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, sexually transmitted disease testing and wellness referrals. They also provide counseling about the mental and emotional toll an abortion can take on a woman.
“Our services are focused on helping women in their initial stages of pregnancy until they are able to establish care with a local provider,” Paul said. “Due to the high demand for Ob/Gyn care in Polk County, many of the providers and facilities refer their patients to us to begin their pregnancy care.”
They also provide referrals to foster care and adoption agencies.
“Options for Women has always supported women in any choice they make regarding their pregnancies and will continue to do so,” she said. “We do this by providing all of our services free of charge. With the first contact we tell them we don’t refer or perform abortions.”
Its website has an abortion page, which states: “Abortion is a choice, and often what women feel is their best or only option when facing an unexpected pregnancy. We seek to empower women to explore their pregnancy options by answering their questions so they may make an informed decision. Our staff is equipped to provide patients with facts about abortion, parenting and adoption, as well as provide important medical testing, all free of charge.”
It also explains how the two medications work that are used to induce a medical abortion.
The clinic has two locations:
- 4435 Florida National Drive, open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- 632 W. 5th St., open Mondays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Another Lakeland agency gearing up for an influx of babies is the Florida Baptist Children’s Home/One More Child campus at 1015 Sikes Blvd. on Lake Hunter.
The Lakeland-based nonprofit organization plans to build 28 semi-detached cottages for single mothers, two large homes for foster families, a 21,375-square-foot meeting/event space, a warehouse, a climate-controlled storage facility and an 8,250-square-foot Family Resource Center.
It also plans to tear down four older dormitories, build a new recreation center and pool, and a new chapel.
Joe McLeod, director of public relations, acknowledged that they are expanding programs and services.
“We are expanding our services to single moms and the recruitment of foster parents,” McLeod said. “We are in the process of implementing a multi-year strategic plan that will increase our capacity to reach more vulnerable children and struggling families locally, nationally and globally.”
Polk County needs more foster parents
The need for foster parents and adoptive parents is already great in Florida.
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count data, 5% of children in Florida — 233,000 — do not live with their biological, adoptive or step-parents.
According to the Florida Department of Health, in 2022, there were 1,131 children in Polk County in foster care, and the rate of 665 children per 100,000 children was higher than the statewide average of 551.5 per 100,000 children.
At the April 1 City Commission meeting, representatives of Heartland for Children said there were 1,930 open child welfare cases in the Tri-County area (Polk, Highlands and Hardee) in fiscal 2022-23 and 780 children were removed from their homes. But there aren’t enough foster homes to place them in.
The agency is 65 homes short of its goal of 250 foster families. Currently, it has 185 traditional foster homes in the Tri-County area, with 173 of those in Polk County.
Polk ranks 53rd out of 67 counties for the health and well-being of children, according to the Florida Policy Institute. There are 4.8 million children, infant to 18 years old, in Florida. Of those:
- 34.3% live in single-family homes.
- 22% live in poverty.
- 8.2% live in high poverty areas.
- 8.4% have experienced verified maltreatment.
- 8.2% have had contact with the juvenile justice system.
- 30% of their families spend more than one-third of their income on housing.
Making it easier to adopt
McLeod said this past year, One More Child served 2,700 children in foster care and saw 148 foster children adopted.
Stargel, the former state senator who authored legislation to ban abortion up to 15 weeks, said the legislature has worked in recent years to help ease the adoption process.
“The goals are to continue ensuring safety of our children while making sure the process is streamlined and efficient so permanency can happen as soon as possible,” said Stargel.
She noted several pieces of successful legislation that repaired issues with adoption and dependency court and ones that further improve Florida’s adoption process.
Senate Bill 1322 added language that helps foster families adopt babies as soon as possible and reduces the rights of a birth parent who has no bond with a child that has formed attachments with potential adoptive parents.
The law is attempting to ensure that a child involved adoption proceedings “is served in a way that minimizes his or her trauma, provides safe placement, maintains continuity of bonded placements, and achieves permanency as soon as possible.”
If a child is removed from a home in an emergency, Senate Bill 1486 requires a criminal background check of the person with whom placement of the child is being considered and any other adult household members or visitors to the home.
Both sides look ahead to November
People on both sides of the abortion debate in Florida said they are now focused on the upcoming election.
“From now until Nov. 5, we will be using every moment to make sure Floridians know that they have the chance to vote ‘YES’ on 4,” said Dawnyelle Singleton, Planned Parenthood’s manager of volunteers and community programs.
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