Abortion

Long before President Biden announced his decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris has been the administration’s voice on abortion rights. As part of her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour earlier this spring, V.P. Harris was the first sitting U.S. vice president1 to visit an abortion provider and she has consistently criticized Republican efforts to limit access to reproductive health care.

An appeals court Wednesday rejected a request by abortion-rights supporters to allow a circuit judge to rule on the legality of a revised “financial impact statement” that would appear on the November ballot with a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion.The 1st District Court of Appeal quickly denied a request filed Wednesday by Floridians Protecting Freedom, a political committee sponsoring the proposed constitutional amendment. The request came two days after a state panel issued a revised financial impact statement that Floridians Protecting Freedom contended was “highly politicized and unlawfully inaccurate.”

With a law taking effect May 1 that prevents abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a new report gives an initial picture of the reduced number of abortions being performed in Florida.The report, posted online by the state Agency for Health Care Administration, is dated July 1 and said 36,221 abortions had been performed in Florida in 2024. That was up from a total of 32,081 abortions included in a monthly report dated June 3.

Five people are at the center of a federal lawsuit claiming violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits using force, threats of force or physical obstruction against any person because they are seeking or providing reproductive health services.The Justice Department filed the suit Thursday in the Middle District of Florida against five people for violating the FACE Act.

The state has appealed a Leon County circuit judge’s decision requiring changes to a “financial impact statement” that will appear on the November ballot with a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at ensuring abortion rights.After announcing his decision during a hearing last week, Circuit Judge John Cooper on Monday issued a written ruling that said outdated information in the financial impact statement “renders it inaccurate, ambiguous, misleading, unclear and confusing.”

Florida abortion providers and activists are girding for a law that will take effect Wednesday and prevent abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, severely limiting access to abortion for women in the state and across the Southeast.While providers rushed to see as many patients as possible before Wednesday, abortion-rights supporters also were bolstering efforts to help women travel out-of-state to obtain the procedure.

In a 12-minute address at Hillsborough Community College, Biden warned of "extreme" laws that restrict abortion access, and he blamed Trump, his predecessor and presumptive 2024 rival, for making those policies possible.

Florida’s Supreme Court recently ruled that the state’s constitution does not protect abortion, allowing the state law passed in 2023 that bans abortion after six weeks to take effect next month. But in a separate decision, the Florida Supreme Court also just ruled that an amendment to guarantee abortion rights in the state’s constitution can go on the November ballot. As all of this unfolds we listen back to a conversation from 2021 when the first modern bill to restrict abortions in Florida was filed, to get a big picture history of the legality, and criminality, of abortion in America.

The Florida Supreme Court on Monday upheld the state’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which means a subsequently passed six-week ban can soon take effect.The court that was reshaped by former presidential candidate and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ruled that the 15-week ban signed by DeSantis in 2022 can take effect. The ban has been enforced while it was being challenged in court. A six-week ban passed in the 2023 legislative session was written so that it would not take effect until a month after the 2022 law was upheld.The Court also ruled that the proposed constitutional amendment that would enshrine abortion access will be on the state’s November ballot.

Lee County's National Organization for Woman chapter is raising concerns over a piece of legislation sponsored by a Fort Myers Republican state representative.A House committee on Wednesday approved controversial HB 651 that would allow parents to file civil lawsuits seeking damages for the wrongful death of an “unborn child,” with critics of the bill saying it is too broad and could shrink the number of doctors who deliver babies in Florida.It now moves to the full House for approval.