What Planned Parenthood is telling patients in Florida

the latest abortion ban in Florida we want to bring in chief medical officer Dr Robin shikler from Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida doctor thank you so much for joining us what are your conversations like with patients who arrive at Planned Parenthood for an abortion and are more than six weeks pregnant yeah so that's a very hard conversation and um you know we actually did have to start having those before today because Florida does have a 24-hour waiting period so there were patients that we saw yesterday and even the day before um that we wouldn't be able to get in before May 1st um it's it's a hard conversation we tell them that we would not be able to provide the abortion to them in the State of Florida and we provide them their options and if they want to continue seeking an abortion then we have patient Navigators that can help them get to where they need to go um and get the resources to get to where they need to go and so when you say you provide them options does that mean you give them recommendations outside of the state yes so we give them recommendations um for different clinics that are outside the state and if they need something um like navigation services from us we can provide that and I want to back up for a little bit because we've heard a lot of conversations about um many women not even knowing that they're pregnant at 6 weeks is that something that you run into as well yes so the way we date a pregnancy is we count from the first day of the last menstrual period that's also basically what ultrasounds go on so if someone has a regular period by the time they've missed a PR uh a period they're already four weeks along and so that gives them little time to to one even just realize that they missed a period um and two to obtain the care that they need so six weeks it's really a tiny amount of time and the majority of patients that I've seen in my practice don't even know till they're at least six week and what are you hearing from these patients right now especially in regard to to having to seek Health Care out of the state of Florida these patients are frustrated um you know and it's a mixture some patients are aware of what's going on some people um you know are busy in their lives and and don't have the time to keep track of everything going on and so it's the first time they've heard about it when we say we can't take care of them they're frustrated they're mad they they just came in to get health care and now they're being told that they can't um and that they have to travel hundreds if not thousands of miles out of the state of Florida from their their home to get that care and with the six week band now taking effect what concerns you most with regard to a pregnant person's physical and emotional health yeah I think you know people are going to continue pregnancies that put them at high risk of both physical and mental and emotional harm and anguish and distress and I think we're going to see an increase in things like maternal morbidity or our sick women who are pregnant because we can't intervene before any of that happens and can you tell us about what's next because there's a lot that that still isn't known as you said even for somebody to Define what constitutes putting the mother's life at risk and I know that there's an amendment on the ballot for the November election to limit the governor government's power tell us what that Amendment seeks to do yeah so this amendment is really to get our rights back it's to to be able to seek medical care and obtain that Medical Care without the government intervening in that care and we deserve that right our patients deserve that right to seek whatever Medical care they need and abortion happens to be part of that medical care for many people Dr Robin shler we thank you so much for your time and insight really appreciate it thank you

Channel: ABC News

Views: 9,273

Keywords: abc, abortion, arizona, ban, florida, live, news, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-109846200, parenthood, patients, plan, planned, prime, six, week

Id: q_gialoqjCQ

Length: 4min 43sec (283 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2024