By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — More than 40,000 abortions had been reported this year in Florida as of Aug. 1, but the number being performed is down after a law took effect preventing abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, according to newly released state data.
The data, posted on the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration website, showed 40,499 abortions reported this year as of Aug. 1. That was up from a total of 36,221 reported at the beginning of July and 32.081 reported at the beginning of June.
The 4,278-abortion increase reported Aug. 1 and the 4,140-abortion increase reported July 1 are significantly lower than increases in previous months and during comparable periods last year. The six-week abortion law took effect May 1.
For example, the total in a report issued at the beginning of June represented a 9,672-abortion increase over the total included in a May 1 report.
Similarly, the May 1 total reflected a 7,674-abortion increase over the total included in an April 1 report. And the April 1 report reflected a 6,277-abortion increase over the total included in a March 2 report.
Abortion clinics are required to submit reports to the Agency for Health Care Administration within 30 days after the end of each month. Lags in reporting made it somewhat unclear when the six-week abortion limit started affecting the totals.
But the July 1 and Aug. 1 reports offer a two-month window showing reduced numbers of abortions. As another illustration, a report issued at the beginning of August 2023 showed a 6,231-abortion increase from roughly a month earlier — 31 percent higher than the 4,278-abortion increase during the comparable period this year.
Of the overall total of 40,499 abortions reported this year as of Aug. 1, 37,551 were in the first trimester of pregnancy, 2,945 were in the second trimester and three were in the trimester, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration. Two of the third-trimester abortions were categorized as being performed “due to fatal fetal abnormality,” while the other was categorized as “due to serious fetal genetic defect, deformity or abnormality.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature approved the six-week abortion limit in 2023 after passing a 15-week limit in 2022. The state Supreme Court on April 1 rejected a constitutional challenge by abortion-rights supporters to the 15-week limit.
That ruling also had the effect of allowing the six-week limit to take effect May 1.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court also allowed a proposed abortion-rights constitutional amendment to go on the November ballot, setting up perhaps the state’s biggest political fight of 2024. Abortion rights supporters have turned to ballot initiatives in Florida and other states after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision and left abortion issues to be decided in states.
The proposed Florida amendment says, in part, that 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.” It would need approval from 60 percent of voters to pass.
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