Exceptions to abortion bans are generally unusable
By 
Republicans responsible for passing unpopular abortion bans like to tout exceptions for rape and incest as gestures of “moderation.” This would be false if the exceptions were actually meaningful in practice. But in fact their only value is to cynical politicians:
According to the AP, the law will further limit already minimal access to abortion throughout the South, as Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi have total abortion bans in place and Georgia prohibits abortions after a heartbeat is detected, usually around six weeks.
Total abortion bans are widely unpopular across the United States. Last October, the American Values Survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that only eight percent of Americans thought that “abortion should be illegal in all cases.” Furthermore, polling by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that “[o]verwhelming majorities also think their state should generally allow abortion in specific cases, including if the health of the pregnant person is endangered or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.”
Florida legislators attempted to make the new abortion restrictions more politically palatable by including certain “exceptions,” including cases of rape, incest, risk to the life of the mother, and fatal fetal abnormalities. But these exceptions are being written by the same elected officials pushing for abortion bans, and therefore include provisions dramatically limiting their utility.
For example, Republican legislators have advertised the law as including an exception for rape and incest. In reality, the law requires that the victim provide documentation of a “restraining order, police report, medical record, or other court order or documentation providing evidence that she is obtaining the termination of pregnancy because she is a victim of rape, incest, or human trafficking.” The exception also only applies if the “gestational age of the fetus is not more than 15 weeks as determined by the physician.”
These requirements will make it difficult for victims to access abortions, as the vast majority of cases of rape and incest go unreported to the police, and obtaining a restraining order or other court order can be difficult and time-consuming. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), “more than 2 out of 3” sexual assaults go unreported. Many victims avoid reporting cases of rape or incest out of fear that it could lead to additional violence or safety issues. The procedure of being processed for rape can also be physically invasive and traumatizing for a victim, as well as emotionally difficult to recount the events. Florida State Representative Robin Bartleman (D) argued during the hearing for the proposed legislation that requiring victims to prove that they were raped can be “re-traumatizing.”
DeSantis, who has been relatively quiet about his support of the bill and signed the law late last Thursday night with “little fanfare,” said that the rape and incest exceptions are “sensible.” While Republican lawmakers are touting the exceptions included in the law as reasonable, the reality is that obtaining an abortion in Florida will be nearly impossible for anyone under the new law.
Bans on abortion are about asserting the state’s dominion over women, and they have no intention of relinquishing it under any circumstances. The exceptions are an empty gesture intended to fail, nothing more.