DeSantis Tries to Defeat Anti-Abortion Measure in Florida. Doctors Describe the Horrors

In the middle of a cheeky, State-sanctioned disinformation campaign against a ballot measure to restore abortion rights in Florida — including visits to voters’ homes by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ team of election thugs — doctors say the state’s ban is putting their patients’ lives at risk, forcing them to face incredibly dire medical scenarios, and some warn they could be forced to leave the state if the measure fails in November.

Planned Parenthood’s Miami, Florida, health center has remained open, but since May 1, a large sign has been posted in the lobby informing patients that, with some exceptions, clinicians are not allowed to perform abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Many of the patients Dr. Chelsea Daniels sees daily are unaware of the state’s ban until they see the sign.

Abortion was restricted in Florida – first after 15 weeks, then after six weeks of gestation – following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling ending federal abortion rights in 2022.

“Often people are just amazed,” Daniels says. Rolling stone“This is the first time they’ve heard of it.”

For those whose periods are more than two weeks late, it’s likely already too late to get care in their home state. “The panic immediately starts to set in,” says Daniels, a physician at the health center. “All of a sudden, they’re faced with this horrible situation where they either have to take time off work to get care or continue a pregnancy that’s potentially life-threatening or life-changing.”

Since the law went into effect four and a half months ago, her practice has seen an influx not only of patients who are unaware of the new law, but also of referrals from local ob-gyns and hospitals who are afraid to offer treatment themselves. In just a few weeks, Daniels says, she treated a patient whose pregnancy was not viable in the first trimester — a miscarriage, in fact — and who had a condition that most doctors and facilities should be able to treat easily.

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“She had four different ultrasounds that confirmed she was not viable. This was her fifth appointment and no one did anything about it because they were so afraid of what the law would do to them,” Daniels says. This patient’s experience, she says, is emblematic of the current climate in Florida.

A new report, released Tuesday by the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights, confirms what Daniels herself sees: that many Floridians don’t realize that the state’s six-week ban is actually a two-week ban, an extremely short window made even shorter by Florida’s 24-hour waiting period; that many doctors delay or refuse to provide needed care for fear of losing their medical licenses or going to jail; and that doctors inclined to continue providing needed care have found that navigating Florida’s exceptions is a Kafkaesque nightmare.

One physician interviewed by PHR researchers described the case of a patient with terminal pancreatic cancer who learned she was pregnant during a positron emission tomography (PET) scan. “She had been on chemotherapy and radiation for almost five years, and because of the recurrences, her periods had been irregular for ages… She had always wanted to get pregnant but was never able to because of her treatments,” the obstetrician-gynecologist recalled. “Her oncologist told her, ‘We have to stop the treatment unless you have an abortion, basically because it’s a risk to the pregnancy.’”

It took the doctor more than a week to obtain the specific paperwork to justify a health exemption under Florida’s ban, and then arrange an abortion at a hospital that could handle her specific medical risks, a four-hour drive away. “You want to get these Supreme Court justices and get them in the room and say, look what you’re doing to people,” the doctor told PHR. “Let this woman have the opportunity to get palliative chemotherapy, which is the least we can do for her, for Christ’s sake.”

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Another hospital OB-GYN recounted a heated disagreement with his emergency department nurses, who refused to give medication to a patient with an ectopic pregnancy — a potentially fatal condition that occurs when an egg implants in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus. “They refused to give it because they were concerned about the legality of giving it as an agent — they kept calling it an abortifacient,” the doctor said.

A third doctor described being paralyzed by unnecessary paperwork while trying to treat a patient suffering from premature rupture of membranes, an emergency that can be fatal without intervention. “We’re going to come in with a pamphlet of state documents. Let’s start filling it all out together, because – even if you know what you want – we have to do all this paperwork,” the doctor recalled. “There’s always a delay that happens with all of this that seems unnecessary in a situation where a delay could potentially increase the risk of infection.”

The PHR report, based on interviews with more than 25 clinicians across the state, was released amid ongoing efforts by the DeSantis administration to sabotage Amendment 4, the ballot measure that would re-legalize abortion in the state. Under Florida law, the measure must win 60% support from voters to pass.

First, DeSantis, Republican lawmakers, and the Heritage Foundation teamed up to add a clause — a so-called “financial impact statement” — to the amendment, claiming that it “would result in a significant increase in the number of abortions and a decrease in the number of live births per year in Florida.” The amendment further states that “an increase in the number of abortions could negatively impact state and local revenue growth over time.”

DeSantis’ Florida Health Agency, which oversees the licensing of health care facilities and manages the state’s Medicaid program, published a website spreading baseless political attacks on Amendment 4. The site claims the measure “threatens women’s safety” and argues, “We must prevent Florida from becoming an abortion tourist destination.”

The agency also runs television and radio spots. One of them states that “abortion is possible before the child’s heartbeat is detected, in cases of rape or incest, and at any time during pregnancy to save the life and health of the mother.” The spot directs viewers to visit the state’s misleading website that opposes Amendment 4.

The referendum sponsor, represented by the ACLU of Florida Foundation, filed a lawsuit against the AHCA seeking removal of the website and television and radio ads.

Beyond the state-sponsored disinformation campaign, the DeSantis administration has dispatched Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents to interview voters who signed petitions supporting the ballot measure.

To get the measure on the November ballot, Amendment 4 organizers collected 997,035 signatures from voters across Florida, but in recent weeks, some signers have reported having agents come to their homes to question them about their signatures — signatures that were verified by the state itself months ago, before the measure was even approved.

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“We paid the state of Florida $1.1 million to validate the signatures,” said Lauren Brenzel, Yes on 4’s campaign manager. “The challenge attempts are very much in line with Florida’s strategy: When you lose on an issue, it’s much easier to make accusations of ‘wrongdoing’ than to acknowledge a truly unpopular policy.”

She calls the tours and the state-funded website attacking Amendment 4 a brazen effort to intimidate and confuse voters. “The state knows that abortion access is popular and doesn’t want to address the real issue here, which is that Florida has one of the most harmful abortion bans in the country,” Brenzel said.