Florida’s controversial bill that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy will affect women well beyond the state’s borders.
Patients come to Florida from the Caribbean Islands and Latin America to get abortions, mostly because the procedures are not legal in their countries, women’s health clinics report. In the Caribbean, home to a patchwork of regulatory jurisdictions, Jamaica, the Bahamas and British Virgin Islands consider abortion a felony.
“We get a lot of women from the islands ... this group of women the abortion law affects, it’s not a small percent,” said Joan Weinstein, director of East Cypress Women’s Center in Fort Lauderdale. “They come here because they have family here, they have a place to stay.”
The vast majority of women in the Latin American region also lack access to legal abortions, although Argentina and Mexico have recently decriminalized the procedure.
At the Miramar Women’s Center, nestled in a town with an estimated 123,000 residents who are Caribbean-American, doctors provide abortions and maternal health to dozens of Jamaican women each month. Administrator Elena Senises says a portion of those women will no longer be eligible if Florida’s proposed abortion law goes into effect.
A bill that would prevent abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy is poised to go to the full Senate this week after the House passed the measure last week. It includes no exceptions for rape, incest, or human trafficking. The only exclusions are if a mother’s life is in danger or the fetus has fatal abnormalities, and both exceptions have to be approved by two doctors.
“I feel like people are quick to judge but they don’t know the circumstances these women are in,” Senises said. “Getting to 15 weeks without knowing can happen because people miscalculate.”
Traveling to Florida for a legal abortion comes with a large number of obstacles that could result in a race against the clock. It can take weeks to get passports and visas.
In the Caribbean, some islands are so tiny that they may not have abortion clinics even if the procedure is legal, and by the time women collect the funds and documents to come to Florida they can easily pass 15 weeks of gestation, Florida clinic directors say.
Miami-Dade, with its diverse population, has women arriving at its abortion clinics from countries such as Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Suriname, which all have blanket prohibitions on abortion, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration collects data on abortions in Florida and reports about 11,200 in the last three years were women from outside the state. The agency said it does not break out how many of those are from outside the country.
As the state of Florida moves toward banning abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, a public opinion poll released Tuesday shows most voters oppose the new restrictions. If the bill passes through the Senate as is, it will head to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk. The governor has previously voiced support for the proposed legislation.
