Ladies bypass Florida’s 6 month abortion ban through healthcare, mail, travel

ORLANDO, Fla. &gt, &gt, In the quarter since Florida imposed a six- week abortion ban, Lana’e Hernandez has helped roughly 200 women figure out how to stop after pregnancies, work that often means protecting airfare, hotel rooms and money to pay clinics in places as far ahead as Illinois. Her clients include a first-time mom who had to give birth to a child because of severe fetal health issues and a single mother of five who was unable to take care of another child. Some of her users, according to her, have never flown on a plane or left the state before. Our government has placed them in a place where they need to keep their support system, travel across the country, and incur enormous costs, Hernandez said.” This pretty well may be one of the most difficult choices our individuals have ever had to face in their life. Hernandez ‘ experience highlight the numerous ways Florida’s new abortion laws have made it more difficult for people and health care providers to deal with the issue of how to stop a pregnancy.” I wish I could just be at the airports and move them to their gate. Some women travel, but others use telehealth visits with out-of-state doctors to get abortion-inducing drugs. Their choices are filled with emotions and operational troubles, and it’s not clear how much these choices can be kept up despite financial and legal difficulties. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in 2022, Hernandez has a glass into the problem as a person pilot for Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida. Fourteen says then ban it openly, with limited instances. Three says, including Florida, restrictions it six days from the first day of a pregnant woman’s past time, with some exceptions. Since 2022, Florida has a 15-week ban on abortions in place, which due to that allowed them to continue until 24 months. Some women have been able to get abortions within the state’s cutoff since Florida’s new ban came into effect on May 1, according to doctors, while others who do n’t know until after six weeks have chosen to continue having unwanted or dangerous pregnancies. The precise effect of the new law is no known because the state abortion statistics for May is not yet full. The access to abortion may even change with the November election. If 60 % of citizens vote yes, people will be asked to cast a ballot on Amendment 4, which may make abortion constitutionally protected in Florida up until about 24 months. Despite efforts to avoid it, backers of Florida’s six-week restrictions claim they are convinced that it will significantly reduce the number of pregnancies obtained by state residents. ” In the vast majority of instances, by way, this is going to own a big impact, as it has in various state”, said Mat Staver, founder of the pro- life Liberty Counsel. ” Florida will not be a destination for abortion as it was before this law,” according to medical professionals in the state of Florida. The goal of organizations known as abortion funds is to assist women in avoiding state restrictions. According to the National Network of Abortion Funds, these funds provided more than$ 36 million for abortions and over$ 10 million for logistical support across the country in 2023. However, rising costs have prevented the Florida Access Network abortion fund from fully meeting the demand, according to Stephanie Loraine Pineiro, executive director of the organization, at a press conference held on Monday. ” Florida’s ban forces Floridians and people from the southeast to travel further, exhausting funds for travel and practical support even more quickly,” said Pineiro. Pineiro claimed that her fund has assisted 150 people over the past month, but that it can only cover about 50 % of the expenses that are typically requested. According to Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a professor at the University of California San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, many women in Florida have obtained or will purchase abortion-inducing pills online because of the new restrictions. Under current law, that’s a viable option, but overlapping rules make the situation complicated. While the state bans telehealth prescribing for abortion medication, the ban applies to doctors, not the women themselves. In some states,” shield laws” have been passed that shield licensed medical professionals from prosecution for prescribing abortion pills to people in states where it’s illegal. Online pharmacies then fill and mail these prescriptions. According to estimates from The Society of Family Planning’s# WeCount project, a national abortion reporting effort, nearly 8, 000 people in states with abortion bans or restrictions are prescribed and mailed abortion pills per month. One of the largest providers, Aid Access, charges$ 150 or less. ” Telehealth really removes so many barriers to abortion”, said Upadhyay, who is also a# WeCount co- chair. ” Patients do n’t even have to take time off work or find childcare “.Currently, Florida women who terminate their pregnancy this way are n’t facing prosecution, nor are the people who help them. Gov. According to a previous state supreme court ruling, Ron DeSantis has previously stated that pregnant women who have abortions in violation of Florida’s law wo n’t face criminal charges. However, the telehealth prescription movement alarms those who support abortion bans. Liberty Counsel’s Staver is “optimistic” this practice will be outlawed in the future. ” I think it’s a major concern”, Staver said. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld access to the medication mifepristone, which is used in many abortions, but other legal challenges are anticipated.” It makes no sense for… Florida to pass a law that regulates brick and mortar facilities, while at the same time someone intentionally sends medication into Florida that is specifically designed to violate the law,” the court said. Dr. William Lile, a North Florida obstetrician and gynecologist who refers to himself as the” ProLife Doc” and believes life begins with conception, said he is concerned about the health of women who take pills without in-person testing to check how far along their pregnancy is and rule out conditions like ectopic pregnancy. The condition, when a fertilized egg grows outside the uterus, is rare but can be life- threatening. A ruptured ectopic pregnancy causes similar symptoms to an abortion, so women who take the pill may not realize what’s really happening, he said. ” We’ve already had cases of women who have been harmed”, Lile said. ” They thought they were taking the pill for an abortion, yet in reality, they were in that 1 % that had an ectopic pregnancy and it is delaying them from seeking health care “.These pills are generally safe to take up to 10 weeks into pregnancy, according to the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, which notes that though side effects are common, serious adverse reactions are rare. Not everyone can travel or obtain pills, however. Some women have been particularly affected by the ban. According to research conducted at Middlebury College, the average Florida resident now lives close to 600 miles away from the closest abortion clinic, up from the 20-mile average before the ban. Wait times for appointments have increased at about 30 % of clinics in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D. C., the closest states where abortion is legal after six weeks of pregnancy. ” I’m hearing people say,’ Well, yeah, I got]an abortion], but I went to Georgia first, and then I went to Ohio, and some of my rent is n’t paid, and I do n’t know where I’m going to live”, said Jenice Fountain, executive director of Alabama’s Yellowhammer Fund, during Monday’s press conference. ” That’s not a win”.Dr. Robyn Schickler, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, said some women, aware of the new law, quickly make appointments and get abortions within the new legal timeframe. Others can take the time, and pay at least some of the costs, for an out- of- state trip. But she’s haunted by the patients who she ca n’t help. ” No matter how much you try and help, some patients, for a variety of reasons, ca n’t leave. These are the most disadvantaged, vulnerable individuals forced to continue their pregnancies”, Schickler said. —— —- Distributed by Tribune Content Agency