The Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates is the nonpartisan advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood health centers in Florida. In partnership with more than 739,000 activists, supporters and donors in the state, the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates advocates for access to our 21 health centers where patients receive nonjudgmental, compassionate and affordable quality care. With nearly 78% of Planned Parenthood health centers in medically underserved areas, Planned Parenthood continues to be a trusted provider for communities in need.
For more than 45 years since the landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, it’s been clear that the United States Constitution protects every woman’s right to make her own personal medical decisions about abortion. Yet politicians in Florida have made it clear they will stop at nothing to end access not only to abortion but the full spectrum of reproductive health care.
Last year, we saw the election of Governor Ron DeSantis who vowed to sign legislation into law that would continue to limit access to critical reproductive health care services. As soon as he took office Governor DeSantis appointed three new state Supreme Court justices that could rule on the future of reproductive rights in Florida. Political observers anticipated that given the new conservative makeup of our state’s Supreme Court, lawmakers would be emboldened to introduce legislation intended to give the new court an opportunity to reverse course on previous rulings to protect Floridians’ constitutional right to privacy.
We knew this legislative session was going to be hostile for reproductive rights, but that did not stop us from fighting against attempts to restrict access to safe, legal and accessible abortion. This session we were able to defeat one of the most dangerous anti-reproductive health bills that our state has ever seen.
This year we saw the introduction of the most extreme bill yet, the six-week abortion ban (SB 792/HB 235), which was an attempt to ban abortion altogether. At six weeks most women do not even know they are pregnant. So this bill would have taken away a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions before she knew she had a decision to make.