Mitch Perry
Shortly after the Florida Senate passed a controversial bill (HB 1411) that includes several provisions that critics say will limit Florida women’s ability to access abortion care, Bernie Sanders is calling on Rick Scott to veto the bill when it comes to his desk.
The Democratic presidential hopeful, in Florida Wednesday as part of a three-day swing in the Sunshine State in advance of next week’s primary, tweeted for the Florida governor to veto the bill, writing, “Don’t play politics with abortion,” re-tweeting a Tampa Bay Times tweet reporting on the bill’s passage in the Senate.
.@FLGovScott, veto this bill. Don’t play politics with abortion. https://t.co/ufhPOuj8DI
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 9, 2016
The bill was sponsored by Lakeland Republican Kelli Stargel. It would prevent abortion clinics from receiving state money for services like cancer screenings and require their doctors to have privileges at a nearby hospital.
“As a society, (we) still have a long way to go to change hearts and reform a culture that leads vulnerable women to terminate their pregnancies,” said Senate President Andy Gardiner. “Often portrayed as minor and inconsequential, the abortion procedure itself is akin to outpatient surgery, yet the same state oversight that governs our surgery centers and hospitals does not currently apply to abortion clinics. This bill makes that important change to ensure that if a woman suffers complications following an abortion, she can be readily transferred to a hospital where she can receive the appropriate medical treatment.”
The legislation more clearly defines the terms “gestation,” “first trimester,” “second trimester,” and “third trimester.” To ensure availability of advanced medical treatment for mothers and align safety precautions governing abortion clinics with those of state regulated ambulatory surgery centers, clinics that perform first and second trimester abortions must have a written patient transfer agreement with a local hospital so that all physicians who perform abortions can provide the appropriate medical treatment if needed.
Although state funded abortions are already against the law, the new measure “enhances” that prohibition by prohibiting state agencies, local governmental entities, and Medicaid managed care plans from contracting with, or expending funds for the benefit of, an organization that owns, operates, or is affiliated with facilities that perform elective abortions.
The ACLU of Florida blasted the bill.
“This bill will jeopardize a woman’s ability access a safe and legally protected healthcare procedure, and is just the latest restriction passed by the Florida legislature intended to make it more difficult for a woman who has made the decision to end a pregnancy to access the care she needs, ” said Michelle Richardson, ACLU of Florida Director of Public Policy. “The legislature cannot legally ban abortion – that is a woman’s constitutional right. Instead, they hide their true goal by disingenuously claiming they are protecting women’s health. In reality, this legislation has little to do with patient care and everything to do with anti-abortion politics. This bill is intended to do one thing: prevent a woman who has determined that she will seek an abortion from doing so.”
The bill now goes before the Florida House, where it’s expected to pass easily. It would then go to Governor Scott’s desk for his signature to put the bill into law.
At a Fox News town hall on Monday night, Sanders was asked by host Bret Baier if there was a “single circumstance” at any point in a pregnancy in which he would be OK with abortion being illegal?
“It’s not a question of me being OK,” Sanders responded. “I happen to believe that it is wrong for the government to be telling a woman what to do with her own body.”
Sanders added his familiar criticism about Republicans as he elaborated.
“There are a whole lot of people out there, who tell me the government is terrible, government is awful. My Republican friends want to cut Social Security, Medicaid. Somehow on this issue, they want to tell every woman in America what she should do with her body. There are some Democrats who say after five months, with the exception of the life of the mother or the health of the baby that perhaps that’s something to look at. I’m very strongly prochoice, that is a decision to be made by a woman and her doctor.”
