A Florida woman seeking an abortion had visited Planned Parenthood North Tampa, just one day before Hurricane Milton barrelled through the region. Amid evacuations, floods, and power outages, she needed to wait at least a day before she could return to the clinic for her second appointment, due to the state’s mandatory 24-hour waiting period for abortions.
But the Planned Parenthood clinic lost power in the storm, and couldn’t open. The woman was forced to go to another clinic, restarting the 24-hour clock and pushing her one day closer to the point of illegality, which, in Florida, is just six weeks pregnant.
“In cases like this, that’s no longer a six-week ban, that’s a five-week five-day ban, because the law allows for absolutely no wiggle room for events that are not in anyone’s control,” said Dr Chelsea Daniels, who practices at Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida.
Two hurricanes rampaged the southeastern US in a two-week span, upending abortion care in a region that already boasts some of the most restrictive bans in the country.
Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida on September 26 before barrelling through Georgia and spiraling out to Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. Aside from North Carolina, all of these states ban abortions after six weeks — with no exceptions for natural disasters. That means those who want one usually only have a few days to get a termination once they’ve discovered they’re pregnant (and one third of people only learn they’re pregnant after six weeks).
By the time Hurricane Milton slammed Florida’s west coast on October 10, clinics in nearby states were still reeling from Helene. The hurricanes and floods caused delays in care, impacting the ability travel, and tacking on additional costs to an already expensive, time-sensitive procedure.
“The state has made it continually difficult for our patients to access abortion care any way they can, and during a storm like this, it’s just magnified immensely,” Barbara Zdravecky, CEO of Planned Parenthood Southwest and Central Florida told The Independent.
All nine of the affiliate’s clinics closed after Milton devastated the state. After being closed for three days, seven of them reopened on Monday while two others — the St Petersburg and North Tampa locations — remain shuttered due to lack of power.
Planned Parenthood directed patients to other health centers in less-impacted areas of the state, but the 24-hour waiting period continued to be a barrier.
National and statewide disasters “make it extremely obvious that the abortion ban that we’re living under…is so arbitrary and ridiculous because if we’re unable to provide care due to weather events, it makes patients’ ability to access care even more challenging,” said Dr Daniels.
Dr Daniels estimated that upward of 90 per cent of her patients are more than five weeks pregnant, meaning under the state’s ban, they have only days to get the procedure.
Floridians have an opportunity to change the law in November, because Amendment 4, which would enshrine the right to abortion in the state, is on the ballot.
In North Carolina, that wait period is even longer: 72 hours. The state is often considered a refuge for many patients in the southeast because it offers a 12-week abortion ban in a sea of states with tighter restrictions. But care at one crucial facility, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic’s Asheville, North Carolina clinic, came to a screeching halt when Helene ravaged the state.
The facility, the only clinic west of Charlotte to offer abortion care in the state, has been closed since September 27.
