Florida’s House Bill 1411 passed the state legislature earlier this month and is now with the state’s governor for signing. If it is signed into law, Planned Parenthood providers in the state will no longer be able to accept Medicaid, potentially leaving thousands of women without access to affordable well-woman care.
To “help out” women who rely on those clinics to receive affordable birth control, breast exams, screenings for STIs, and Pap smears, Florida lawmakers have provided a list of alternative "federally qualified health centers" where they can go. The list is interesting, to say the least.
Included in it are several elementary and middle schools, dentist’s offices, a Salvation Army, and even a mobile eye care unit. Basically, lawmakers are suggesting that women in Florida who have difficulty accessing affordable reproductive care can go to the local elementary school nurse for a Pap smear.
While shocking, this isn’t new. Politicians in Ohio did something similar in 2015, when they suggested women seeking affordable well-women care visit food banks (in addition to school nurses and dentist’s offices). That same year, Louisiana lawmakers recommended that women visit ophthalmologists, nursing home caregivers, and cosmetic surgeons for the same treatment.
These lists are tied in with bills that create state-wide abortion restrictions but end up removing affordable well-women care in the process.
"This bill threatens access to birth control, cancer screenings, STD tests and treatment, and other care for people who need it the most,” Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates tells SELF, adding that the bill specifically targets women and young people who don’t have insurance, and have relied on Planned Parenthood for that care. “The fact that lawmakers think our patients can go to a podiatrist for a Pap smear just goes to show why they have no business writing laws about women's health."
Kelly Baden, director of state advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, calls the law and recommended list of providers “outrageous.” “This bill is just really another notch on the belt of anti-choice legislatures that are playing politics with women’s health,” she tells SELF. “Maybe when scores of Florida women show up at the school nurse demanding birth control pills, Florida lawmakers will recognize the absurdity of this bill.”
Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), says the bill is sex discrimination. “There’s not a single aspect of men’s healthcare that’s treated in this completely demeaning way,” she tells SELF. “Who says to a man who wants a vasectomy, ‘Go to your dentist or your child’s school nurse’?”
O’Neill is concerned that women may actually die as a result of the law because they won’t have access to cancer screenings, as well as important care during pregnancies. Lack of abortion care may also cause women to attempt to self-induce an abortion, potentially harming their health in the process.
O’Neill is hopeful that there will be a lawsuit filed to stop the bill from going into law, if the governor signs it. “Otherwise, women won’t get adequate care,” she says.
Unfortunately, Baden says Florida governor Rick Scott is expected to sign the bill into law on Thursday, despite receiving 12,000 petition signatures from women asking him to veto it.
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