Florida's abortion law doesn't make mental health exception
Standard exception for pre-Roe care not included in recently passed legislation
(A passage from The Abortion Handbook, an underground publication that was distributed to women who sought abortions in California prior to Roe v. Wade)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill limiting abortion access after the 15th week of pregnancy. The exceptions that he made should be delineated further.
Before abortion was completely legal, legislatures permitted exceptions for abortions in the cases of mental or physical health concerns. In Florida’s bill, there is no exception at all for mental health issues. In fact, it explicitly rules out “psychological” concerns as a justification for abortion.
For a woman to qualify for an abortion after 15 weeks, she has to have two physicians provide notes that in their medical judgment that abortion would save a woman’s life or avert a serious risk of substantial or irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.
It’s worth noting some history here. Prior to states liberalizing abortion laws in the 1970s, women had to go before hospital committees to get approval from a panel to get an abortion. Psychological concerns were a standard consideration.
Florida’s exclusion of mental health exceptions is a regression for even pre-Roe standards of abortion care. Pioneering abortion rights activists like Patricia Maginnis and Lana Clark Phelan advised women on how to convince physicians to approve of abortions. Included among their suggestions were bribery and feigning psychosis. The move away from forcing them to do that was seen as major progress in reproductive rights.
The easiest attack line on these types of abortion bills is that they require a woman to have a doctor’s note to get an abortion. That itself seems deeply intrusive and violates a woman’s right to privacy. And it establishes a moral judgment that others must make for a woman in whether or not abortion is permissible. That doesn’t respect her bodily or mental autonomy, or ability to reason for herself whether she’s making the right decision.