Women’s rights activists are shifting their lobbying efforts to the latest move in the Florida legislature by Republicans to limit a woman’s access to abortion services, House Bill 19, which would extend for up to 10 years the time a woman who is injured or feels emotional distress after an abortion could sue their doctor. The limit is two years under existing medical malpractice laws.
Abortion rights activists say the legislation targets women and the doctors who care for them by forcing doctors to pay for extra liability insurance to protect them for years longer than physicians in other specialties.
HB 19 and laws like it “decrease the number of abortion providers, not the number of abortions,” said I. Cori Baill, M.D., in an opinion piece carried in the Orlando Sentinel Feb. 17, 2017.
“If there is any doubt of this look to a country like Brazil, where legal abortion access is limited to rare circumstances and otherwise punishable. The per-capita rate of abortion is approximately equal to the United States; however, statistics show that 200,000 women each year are hospitalized because of unsafe abortions,” she wrote.
Naturally, advocates want voters to call and write legislators opposing the bill, and some are taking the battle to Tallahassee personally. Planned Parenthood is dedicating its ‘lobbying day’ in April to this bill.
“We are writing our ‘lobbying stories’ now, and are taking training classes on lobbying,” says Guerdy Remy, the chair of the Seminole County Democrat’s Events Committee, and a volunteer representative for Planned Parenthood.
Although Republicans control the legislature, and have passed a series of restrictions on abortion providers in recent years, passage is not a sure thing.
Tampa Bay Times writer Michael Auslen wrote from Tallahassee Feb. 9th, “Abortion rights advocates are not the only opponents of the legislation (HB19).
Lobbyists for the insurance industry, doctors and even Republican lawmakers have raised concerns about the potential impact of letting women sue their doctors years down the road and outside of the state’s medical malpractice laws.”