A Florida Planned Parenthood chapter confirmed that two child incest survivors (one middle school-aged, one a teenager) were denied abortions in their home state—which bans the procedure after 15 weeks.
Laura Goodhue, vice president of public policy for Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida, told BuzzFeed News Wednesday that the two children were forced to travel “at least two, three states away” for abortions and received help from the group to arrange the trip.
“The cruelty of forcing a very young person, who has already survived a horrible case of violence, to give birth, it just takes away their rights to bodily autonomy, and it is really turning a blind eye to what is happening in our society,” Goodhue said.
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Florida Democratic state Sen. Lauren Book attempted to create exemptions for rape, incest, and human trafficking to the 15-week ban, but Republicans rejected the proposal, the Associated Press reported in February.
In a virtual press conference Wednesday, Alexandra Mandado, president of Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida, said Florida’s border clinics are seeing double the number of survivors of rape, incest, and domestic violence as well as young people arriving to seek abortions, “none of whom have any say of their own bodies if they are over 15 weeks pregnant.”
Also speaking at the virtual conference was North Florida OB-GYN Dr. Shelly Tien. She talked about the challenges faced by very young patients or those living in domestic violence situations—something that makes it even more difficult to seek treatment before the 15-week deadline.
“We are seeing this restriction have profound and terrible effects for some families in the most desperate of situations [...] To not be able to provide that service because of the restriction for a patient in such a terrible and violent situation is horrible,” Tien said.
About the young teen who initially tried to seek treatment in Florida, Tien said that in the end, it was “another delay and barrier that that young girl should not need to face.”
In July, Daily Kos reported on a story published in the Indianapolis Star about a 10-year-old girl who was forced to leave her home state of Ohio and travel to Indianapolis for abortion care. The lead author of the piece, Shari Rudavsky, a health and medical reporter for the Star for 18 years, wrote that just three days after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Caitlin Bernard got a call from a doctor in Ohio telling her that they had a 10-year-old patient who’d been the victim of a sexual assault. She was six weeks and three days pregnant.
In late September, a lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division, against Ohio Attorney General David Yost seeking to end the state’s extreme abortion law. The suit, filed by Preterm-Cleveland on behalf of multiple unnamed plaintiffs, cites numerous affidavits from minors who were made pregnant due to sexual assault but unable to access abortion care, as well as pregnant adults who were refused abortion care, resulting in dangerous medical emergencies and, in at least two cases, having to pause chemotherapy at the risk of felony charges.
The Ohio Capital Journal reports the affidavits were successful in at least temporarily pausing the abortion law and extending the delay until Oct. 14. The suit ultimately intends to find Ohio’s “heartbeat ban” unconstitutional.