TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — On the first day of Florida’s legislative session, two Republican lawmakers filed bills banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The measures, Senate Bill 146 and House Bill 5, would ban a physician from performing an abortion after 15 weeks unless the health of the mother is at risk, or if there is a “fatal fetal abnormality.” The bills would also require abortion providers to document the number of pregnancies terminated by medications and submit that figure to the Agency for Health Care Administration monthly.
Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, and Rep. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, filed the bills on Tuesday, turning up the temperature on what promises to be one of the most contentious legislative debates of the year.
Before the legislative session started, House Speaker Chris Sprowls put Grall and Rep. Colleen Burton, R-Lakeland, in charge of his chamber’s abortion legislation efforts. That could mean the proposals have momentum in a Legislature helmed by Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby.
With a conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, and a state Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees, anti-abortion activists see a unique opportunity to pass abortion restrictions this session.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, a staunch defender of abortion rights who used to work as a senior director at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, expressed her outrage in a Tuesday morning tweet.
“Be ready to fight,” Eskamani wrote.
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