Abortion Clinics In Florida
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Some states are already considering laws that prohibit residents from traveling out of state for abortion care; other states are seeking to impose criminal, civil, and administrative liability on patients, providers, and those coordinating care. As anti-abortion states threaten to force pregnancy within their borders and chill access beyond their borders, Florida must protect providers, patients, and helpers.
We can't rely on other states to protect our providers; Florida must do what we can to strengthen legal protections for abortion providers in our state. Protecting our providers also means equipping them with the tools to increase capacity and meet patient demand.
With nearly half of U.S. states set to ban or restrict abortion now that Roe is overturned, our country will face an unprecedented health care crisis. In order to respond comprehensively and effectively, we need to understand the size and scope of the problem we are facing.
We must also ensure that pregnant people in Florida have clear, comprehensive, and up-to-date information on where to access legitimate reproductive health care. Crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs, pose as legitimate health care facilities, but in fact are unlicensed centers that do not provide abortion care and have an anti-abortion agenda. They often pop up near legitimate clinics to deceive pregnant people seeking to access real abortion care.
The only way we can guarantee that abortion care is protected in Florida and across the nation is by making sure we elect leaders who prioritize our health, constitutional rights, and access to abortion. If you or anyone you know is not not yet registered to vote, visit
Not only is it crucial that people still know abortion is legal, we must also keep the conversation about protecting abortion access going within our own networks. By speaking up, we can raise awareness about donating to abortion funds, voting to protect reproductive health rights in upcoming elections and demanding that our current elected officials support abortion access and the right for us to determine our own futures.
Between 2011 and 2012, after the state passed a law requiring minors work through their local county courts, the statewide denial rate went up from 4.6 percent to 10.7. Almost a decade later, in 2020, Florida lawmakers switched from requiring that minors notify a parent about their abortion to instead requiring they get explicit consent. That year, denials increased from 9.1 percent to 13.3.
The data from Florida suggests similar patterns in other states, Nash said. Even as states pass sweeping new abortion bans, existing laws around parental involvement are making the procedure incredibly difficult for minors to obtain, regardless of whether their state allows abortion or not.
We\u2019re answering the \u201chow\u201d and \u201cwhy\u201d of abortion news. Subscribe to our daily newsletter.\n\n\n\nNew data from Florida shows just how much influence individual judges \u2014 almost all White men \u2014 wield in determining if minors can access abortions in the state.\u00a0\n\n\n\nIn 36 states, minors are legally required to involve at least one parent before seeking an abortion, in some cases by simply notifying them and in others by obtaining explicit consent. Such laws are one of the nation\u2019s most common forms of abortion restriction. \n\n\n\nBut in almost all of those states, young people who cannot talk to their parents about the abortion \u2014 perhaps for fear of their own safety, because their parents don\u2019t support abortion, or because they don\u2019t live with their parents \u2014 can go through judicial bypass. In that process, a judge agrees to override the parental involvement requirement, placing tremendous decision-making power in the hands of a few judges.\u00a0\n\n\n\nThe new report, an analysis of state court records by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW), finds that close to 1 in 10 Floridians who seek a judicial bypass each year are denied. The data suggests that approval depends on where one lives. In Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, close to half of all bypass petitions were denied in 2021. In Miami-Dade and Orange Counties \u2014 home to Miami and Orlando, respectively \u2014 none were. \n\n\n\nIn Florida, minors are assigned a court-appointed lawyer to help navigate the bypass process. Judges are tasked with assessing whether a minor is \u201cmature\u201d enough to decide for themselves whether they can get an abortion. Per Florida law, that means considering factors such as the person\u2019s intelligence, ability to \u201caccept responsibility\u201d and understanding of what an abortion entails. If a petition is turned down, minors can, in some scenarios, refile their case in the same court, or submit an appeal \u2014 though that process takes time, delaying when someone is able to get care.\n\n\n\nThe variation across Florida counties shows just how much the assessment or someone\u2019s \u201cmaturity\u201d is colored by a judge\u2019s individual leanings, the HRW report argued.\u00a0\n\n\n\n\n\n\u201cHow is it that a Hillsborough County young person \u2014 that as a whole, they are immature but then you look at Miami-Dade or Orange County, and they\u2019re more mature? It doesn't make sense,\u201d said Annie Jae Filkowski, policy director at Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates. \u201cYour ability to access reproductive health care shouldn't depend on the circuit court in which you reside.\u201d\n\n\n\nThough Florida does not track the demographic information of minors who go through the judicial bypass process, federal data from 2020 shows that about 30 percent of people in Florida who get abortions are White, compared to 37.5 percent who are Black and 29 percent who are Hispanic. That\u2019s a stark contrast from the state\u2019s judicial makeup, which in 2017 was more than 80 percent White, per the state bar association; barely 10 percent of all judges were women of color. (More recent data is not available.)\u00a0\n\n\n\nResearch has shown that a judge\u2019s background, training and personal beliefs can all influence whether they are willing to grant a judicial bypass. \n\n\n\nJudicial bypass laws like Florida\u2019s are part of a national trend, said Elizabeth Nash, who tracks state policy for the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that studies reproductive health. These laws, common in states of all political makeups, \u201care designed to and have the impact of keeping young people from accessing abortion care,\u201d Nash said. \n\n\n\nSince 2011, Nash said, states have made parental involvement laws progressively stricter, revisiting existing statutes so that minors seeking a judicial bypass must go through their local county court \u2014 rather than any court in the state, or in some cases, family law courts. Some laws have restricted what criteria judges can even use to determine if a young person should be allowed to get an abortion. \n\n\n\nSince those laws changed, fewer people have been able to qualify for these judge-granted exceptions. In Florida, Human Rights Watch found, the percentage of minors denied a judicial bypass has increased every time the state passed new laws refining the process. \n\n\n\nBetween 2011 and 2012, after the state passed a law requiring minors work through their local county courts, the statewide denial rate went up from 4.6 percent to 10.7. Almost a decade later, in 2020, Florida lawmakers switched from requiring that minors notify a parent about their abortion to instead requiring they get explicit consent. That year, denials increased from 9.1 percent to 13.3.\n\n\n\nThe data from Florida suggests similar patterns in other states, Nash said. Even as states pass sweeping new abortion bans, existing laws around parental involvement are making the procedure incredibly difficult for minors to obtain, regardless of whether their state allows abortion or not. \n\n\n\nAnd the numbers only show one layer of difficulty in getting a bypass, advocates who have navigated the state system said. \n\n\n\nOften, teens also aren\u2019t able to schedule a visit with an abortion clinic before getting an approved bypass \u2014 meaning that they do not learn the nuances of how the procedure might work, and struggle to answer questions about abortion in court, noted Kristen Flynn, an attorney in West Palm Beach who volunteers to help minors who are seeking judicial bypass. About 200 minors seek a judicial bypass in Florida each year; Flynn works with maybe 15 to 40 cases annually.\n\n\n\nOne teen, she remembered, sought a bypass because she feared her father would be violent toward her if he found out she wanted an abortion. But while seeking the judge\u2019s approval, she learned that mentioning this could trigger a mandatory reporting protocol for suspected child abuse.\n\n\n\n\n\n\u201cShe found out and clammed up at the hearing, didn\u2019t say what she needed to say, and was denied,\u201d Flynn said. Eventually, Flynn was able to refile the case and win a judicial bypass, allowing the young woman to get an abortion. \n\n\n\nThose kinds of delays \u2014 of days or even weeks \u2014 can push people further in pregnancy, forcing them in some cases to require more complicated or expensive procedures. And now, they matter even more. In Florida, abortion is illegal after 15 weeks, and clinics have reported dramatic increases in the number of out-of-state patients they see, making it far harder to get an appointment. \n\n\n\nThere are other challenges, too. In some cases, minors don\u2019t appear aware they have been granted a court-appointed lawyer. Filkowski recalled multiple patients who called the clinic after a bypass petition was denied, and only learned while speaking to Planned Parenthood staff that she had a lawyer representing her in court. In such cases, Filkowski said, a lawyer is typically present in the court but simply does not speak during the hearing.\n\n\n\nSome teens don\u2019t have access to a car, which means it is harder for them to make it to the courthouse. Minors aren\u2019t assigned court-appointed attorneys until they have filled out the state paperwork to seek a judicial bypass, even though those documents are technically considered sworn legal testimony, Flynn noted.\n\n\n\n\u201cYou will get a situation where things weren\u2019t explained correctly or they didn't put the right thing [in the form],\u201d she said. \u201cThey didn't have an attorney to help.\u201d\n","post_title":"In Florida, 1 in 10 minors are denied abortions by judges","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"florida-judges-abortion-access-minors","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2023-02-08 16:19:08","post_modified_gmt":"2023-02-08 22:19:08","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/19thnews.org\/?p=50213","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},"authors":[{"name":"Shefali Luthra","slug":"shefali-luthra","taxonomy":"author","description":"Shefali Luthra is our health reporter covering the intersection of gender and health care. Prior to joining The 19th she was a correspondent at Kaiser Health News, where she spent six years covering national health care and policy.","parent":0,"count":248,"filter":"raw","link":"https:\/\/19thnews.org\/author\/shefali-luthra"}]} Up Next Abortion 59ce067264