Florida Lawmakers Pass 15-Week Abortion Ban — Other States Will Likely Follow

Topline

The Florida Senate passed legislation on Thursday prohibiting most abortions after 15 weeks—which will now go to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to sign—the first in a likely series of statewide abortion bans that will be enacted this year, as the Supreme Court appears poised to uphold a similar law in Mississippi and let states restrict the procedure.

Pro-abortion rights advocates protest the state’s 15-week abortion ban legislation on February 16 in … [+] Tallahassee, Florida.

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Key Facts

The Florida bill, which passed late Thursday in a 23-15 vote, will roll back the state’s current abortion laws, which currently allow abortions until 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

The bill will only allow for exceptions in the case of medical emergencies and severe fetal abnormalities, after a proposed amendment failed that would have allowed carveouts for rape, incest and human trafficking.

Florida House lawmakers already passed the legislation in February, so the bill will now go to DeSantis, who has expressed his support for the legislation and is expected to enact it into law.

Once DeSantis signs the bill, it will take effect July 1.

Chief Critic

Florida Democrats and abortion rights advocates have heavily opposed the legislation. “Medical science and compassion are dangerously absent from this bill,” Dr. Sujatha Prabhakaran, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, said in a statement Thursday, arguing the 15-week ban “has no medical significance” and “only serves to hurt people who are in some of the most difficult and heartbreaking moments of their lives.”

Big Number

2%. That’s the percentage of abortions in the U.S. that took place after 15 weeks in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though abortions after 15 weeks aren’t as common as those earlier in pregnancy, abortion rights advocates argue it’s necessary for abortions to still be accessible after that point, particularly since those seeking post-15-week abortions are often minors, people who didn’t have access to care sooner or those with health complications that only emerged later into the pregnancy.

What We Don’t Know

Whether the Florida law will be blocked in court. The Supreme Court is now deliberating whether to uphold Mississippi’s similar 15-week ban, with a ruling expected likely in June or early July, around the time the Florida bill is set to take effect. If the court sides with Mississippi, the ruling would give states license to enact similar abortion bans, which are currently considered unconstitutional under Supreme Court precedent. Since it will likely be a few months before that decision comes out, however, a court could block the Florida law sooner, only to have its ruling overturned after the Supreme Court rules. That being said, Florida’s bill is also complicated by the state’s Constitution, as the Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that the right to an abortion is protected under state law—meaning even if the Supreme Court rules it’s fine to restrict abortion under federal law, the law could still get blocked in state court. The ACLU of Florida has already said it believes the 15-week ban is unconstitutional even if the Supreme Court rules for Mississippi, and the abortion restriction will likely face legal challenges under the state Constitution once DeSantis signs it into law.

Key Background

The Florida bill is one of several 15-week bans moving forward in state legislatures in advance of the Supreme Court’s Mississippi ruling, with similar bills also moving forward in Arizona and West Virginia. The bills are part of a broader slew of abortion restrictions being enacted by GOP state lawmakers—the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute notes more than 100 restrictions were passed last year alone—and many states have also gone beyond the 15-week restrictions with bills like six-week bans or “trigger bans” that would outlaw abortions entirely if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. The Washington Post notes 15-week bans have become particularly attractive to Republicans, however, who view the policy as being a “compromise” that lets them restrict the procedure without imposing more severe bans that will garner more controversy. “If they drop a bill so extreme and so crazy that it dominates the news for months, when they drop a 15-week ban, it does not look as extreme,” Annie Filkowski, policy director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, told the Post in February.