The Florida House this week could give final approval to a bill that seeks to prevent abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The House will take up the proposal (HB 7 and SB 300) on Thursday, which could lead to a vote on Friday, according to a document posted Monday evening.
The Senate on April 3 voted 26-13 to approve the six-week limit, and the Republican-controlled House is expected to follow suit.
If passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, the proposal would be subject to a major caveat: Seven abortion clinics and a physician filed a constitutional challenge to a 15-week limit passed last year.
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A key issue in that case is whether the limit violates a privacy clause in the Florida Constitution that has helped protect abortion rights in the state for more than three decades.
Under the proposed legislation, moving to a six-week limit would be contingent on the Florida Supreme Court effectively upholding the 15-week law.
Florida Abortion Clinic Faces Fine Over Waiting Period
An administrative law judge Friday recommended that an Orlando abortion clinic pay a $67,550 fine for not complying last spring with a law requiring 24-hour waiting periods before abortions can be performed.
Judge J. Bruce Culpepper found that the Center of Orlando for Women violated the law, but he recommended lowering a $193,000 fine sought by the state Agency for Health Care Administration.
Under administrative law, Culpepper’s ruling is a recommended order that will go back to the agency for final action.
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The case centers on a waiting-period law that passed in 2015 but did not go into effect until April 25, 2022, because of a court fight.
The agency alleged that 193 abortions were performed at the Orlando clinic from April 26, 2022, to May 7, 2022, without 24-hour waiting periods. It sought to impose a $1,000 fine for each of the abortions.
The clinic argued that it made repeated requests to the agency for information about when the 24-hour waiting period requirement would take effect and got no information.
Culpepper recommended lowering the fine to $350 for each abortion. He wrote that evidence and testimony in the case included “certain extenuating and mitigating facts that should be considered when assessing the gravity” of the violations.
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For example, he wrote that the clinic began requiring 24-hour waiting periods on May 9, two days before an agency official appeared unannounced at the clinic to review records.
“(The) evidence does not show that the center had direct, contemporaneous knowledge that the 24-hour wait period went into effect on April 25, 2022,” Culpepper wrote. “Accordingly, the evidence does not prove that the center intentionally violated (the law) for the termination procedures performed on 193 patients between April 26, 2022, and May 7, 2022.”
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