Life During DeSantis
By 
The near-total ban on abortion in the nation’s third largest state signed by Governor Freedom (TM) went into effect today:
When she walked into the abortion clinic Tuesday morning, Kristen thought she’d made it just in time.
The 22-year-old mother of two had learned just a few hours earlier that a new six-week abortion ban would go into effect in Florida on Wednesday. So she canceled all her plans and found someone to drive her, in hopes of ending her pregnancy before the deadline.
She was one day too late.
“We did an ultrasound and you’re over the state limit,” said Eileen Diamond, the director of Benjamin Surgical Services International, gently explaining to Kristen that thetest showed she was eight weeks pregnant.
While the clinic could still provide abortions for women more than six weeks into their pregnancies until midnight, Diamond said, another Florida law requires all abortion patients to have an ultrasound at least 24 hours before their procedure. That meant the earliest Kristen could get an abortion was Wednesday, when her abortion would no longer be legal.
“Oh no,” Kristen said, tears rolling down her cheeksas she sat across a desk from Diamond in a consultation room. “No. No.”
As of Wednesday morning, clinics across the country’s third-largest state can no longer offer abortions to most patients who walk through their doors — forced to turn away any woman who is further than six weeks along, a point when many still don’t know they’re pregnant. The enactment of Florida’s new ban on May 1 is widely expected to be the biggest jolt to abortion access across the country since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
For Kristen, the nearest abortion clinic that will be able to help her is now an 11-hour drive away in North Carolina.
“I can help you find an appointment in another state, but you would have to get there,” Diamond told her Tuesday.
Kristen shook her head. Then she looked at Diamond and laughed: With her financial situation, Diamond might as well have been suggesting she fly to the moon.
There will be so many stories like this, and they should never stop being infuriating. And never forget how derisively Democrats who pointed out what the stakes of the 2014 and 2016 elections were for reproductive rights were often treated by the media.
Another important point to be made here is that even if the abortion rights referendum can pass a 60% threshold and even if Republican goons can’t figure out a way to nullify it — neither exactly a slam dunk — the barbaric statute is likely to cause abortion clinics to permanently shutter:
This right here. Florida indie clinics will struggle to stay open between now and *if* the abortion amendment passes and takes effect. The soonest that could happen is January—eight months from now. https://t.co/YtgAup3RhI @KeepOurClinics @AbortionCare https://t.co/baebAUFA0b— Susan Rinkunas has a newsletter (@SusanRinkunas) May 1, 2024
Which is why Florida’s constitution protects reproductive rights, and why hack judges were needed to nullify it. And they’re not going to be stopping here:
Dobbs having been done, the next major goal of the Neoconfederate Judicial Industrial Complex is to get abortion defined as murder in all 50 states by judicial fiat https://t.co/bQgyro0bPx— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) May 2, 2024