'Women are scared and angry': The reality of Florida's new 6-week abortion law sets in

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — On Tuesday, the reality of Florida’s new six-week abortion ban hit the radar of pregnant women seeking care.

At a Planned Parenthood clinic in West Palm Beach, doctors scrambled to provide abortions for anyone pregnant beyond six weeks. Women crowded into a waiting room, returning for a pill or surgical procedure. The men who brought them paced the parking lot or sat in cars watching for the women they brought.

Yet, even with the scramble, the clinic turned some women away, a glimpse into the future of reproductive care in Florida.

A recent Florida Supreme Court ruling paved the way for the Sunshine State to enforce a six-week ban on abortions beginning May 1. However, Florida law requires two doctor visits, at least 24 hours apart, to get a medication or surgical abortion. So anyone six weeks pregnant or more arriving Tuesday at a clinic learned they must travel outside the state for abortion care. Rather than an abortion, they received a flier with resources.

“I am going to get in today,” said Cathy, pacing the sidewalk outside a Palm Beach County clinic in her gray sweatshirt and green paisley pajama bottoms. Waiting for her procedure later in the afternoon, the 20-something said she had not known about the six-week ban. “I couldn’t have traveled.”

Dr. Cherise Felix, an ob-gyn with Planned Parenthood in West Palm Beach, said she had no idea how late she would be working on Tuesday, but recognized Wednesday would signal a new routine.

“We’re prepared to go as late as we have to today,” Felix said. “Tomorrow I won’t be able to offer my patients what I offered them yesterday.”

For the last two years, abortion has been legal in Florida through 15 weeks. Florida lawmakers put that restriction into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, which had protected the right to have an abortion. Before that court decision, abortions were legal in Florida through 24 weeks.

The state has about 50 clinics that provide abortions, and in 2023 they provided some 84,000 procedures — about 51,000 of them after six weeks of gestation.

Starting Wednesday, when a women arrives pregnant at a clinic, she will receive a sonogram to measure the gestational age of the fetus.

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