In a 5-2 decision Friday, the Florida Supreme Court suspended the state’s 24-hour waiting period for abortions while it determines whether it will hear a suit claiming that the law is unconstitutional. The waiting period has been in effect since February, thanks to an appeals court decision.
The Florida Supreme Court on Friday tapped the brakes on the controversial state law, which requires women to visit the doctor, in person, a full day before an abortion. It's the latest in a protracted legal fight that began last summer after the measure was passed by the Republican-controlled state Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott.
Gainesville-based abortion clinic Bread and Roses Women's Health Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida sued the state, claiming the law violates broad privacy protections under the Florida Constitution. A Tallahassee circuit court still hasn't ruled on that question. The fight has so far surrounded an injunction stopping the law from going into effect.
Florida is one of 28 states that have established waiting periods for women seeking abortions. Most of these, like Florida’s, are for 24 hours. But Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee have extended their waiting periods to 48 hours. And there is a push by forced-birther activists in several states to make waiting periods even longer. Five states—Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah—have adopted waiting periods of 72 hours.
South Dakota’s is the worst. There, the 72-hour waiting period to obtain an abortion at the state’s only remaining clinic performing them does not include weekends or holidays. This makes getting an abortion more difficult and expensive.
In South Dakota and all the other states with a waiting period, pre-abortion “counseling” is required of all women seeking to terminate their pregnancies. Much of that counseling includes outright fabrications, including bogus claims that a woman who obtains an abortion is more likely than one who doesn’t to develop breast cancer, become infertile, suffer depression or abuse drugs, none of which is supported by medical research. Seven of these states also provide funds to pregnancy crisis centers. These forced-birther facilities, which are often religious fronts, provide “counseling,” much of which consists of disinformation specifically designed to steer women away from abortion.