The Florida House has passed a bill banning a particular medical procedure. Affiliates of Planned Parenthood and some lawmakers believe the measure is another unnecessary attempt to discard safe and legal abortions.
Missy Wesolowski with the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood says the bill would ban the most common and safest abortion procedure.
“We believe that it would interfere with the doctor’s ability to provide the safest care that they believe is for their patients," Wesolowski says, "and with the language in the bill being kind of vague, a doctor would be unsure how to safely and legally provide a woman an abortion in the second trimester.”
Affiliates of Planned Parenthood believe the bill has no medical basis and puts women’s health at risk. Wesolowski says the bill passed in several other states but most are facing challenges in the courts.
“It’s very unfortunate that House decided to take this bill up and put politics over health care, but we have seen this time and time again," Wesolowski says.
But supporters of the bill do not believe it will take away a woman’s decision to abort a pregnancy. The sponsor of the bill.
Rep. Erin Grall (R-Vero Beach) says, “This is a middle. This bill acknowledges that a woman is having an abortion. It says let us remind ourselves of our humanity. And make sure that we do not tear a child a part in the womb just because they cannot articulate their pain.”
The Senate has yet to decide on a similar bill. And Wesolowski does not believe the bill will move forward in that chamber.
“We believe that the senate recognizes that Floridians do not approve of interfering with women personal private medical decisions. I mean it is legislative session and it still has about another week left, but we are very optimistic at this point that the senate has not yet heard this legislation.”
