TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – Time is running out for Florida advocates pushing to expand abortion access this legislative session as they rally at the Capitol, while Republican lawmakers show little interest in their cause.
Dozens of people gathered on Thursday to push for state lawmakers to pass the Reproductive Freedom Act. Advocates say more than half the people in the state want the legislation to pass.
“I really, really think every person has the right to choose their medical care,” said Sara Jones, who used IVF to have her daughter.
Jones said she has wanted to be a mother since she can remember, but it is physically impossible for her to get pregnant without IVF. That experience brought her to the Capitol rally.
The Reproductive Freedom Act would expand abortion access beyond six weeks, ban state interference in health care decisions and clarify that embryos don’t have independent rights.
“We really want doctors and patients and doctors making those decisions on their own in the exam room without interference from the government,” said Michelle Quesada, interim director of Planned Parenthood Florida Action.
Quesada noted that a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize abortion access received 57% of the vote in 2024, just shy of the 60% threshold needed to pass.
“We need to be able to have the full scope of autonomy to be able to make decisions,” Quesada said.
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Meanwhile, Republicans like Rep. Sam Grecco, R-St. Augustine is pushing for more restrictions. In January, the House approved a bill that would allow wrongful death lawsuits for fetuses lost at any stage of pregnancy.
“This bill is for the mother who is driving home from work six months pregnant, gets slammed by a drunk driver, and right now can not recover for the death of that unborn child,” Grecco said.
The bill now sits in the Senate Rules Committee with its Senate companion.
Jones worries that the bill defines life as beginning at conception. She has embryos in storage and questions whether she would be forced to have eight more children she doesn’t desire or be forced to give her genetic material to someone else to raise her children.
Now that the legislative session is past the halfway point, it doesn’t look like any of these bills will get a hearing.
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