Florida Dem Leader Talks to Abortion, Every Day
Florida Dem Leader Talks to Abortion, Every Day
"Where is the uprising? Where is the outrage?"
In the few weeks since Florida lawmakers introduced a 6-week abortion ban, it has flown through the legislative process. And with the state’s Republican supermajority, it’s all but certain that women in the state will soon be without basic healthcare. “Check on your legislative friends in Florida, they are not okay,” state Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book tells me.
Like all 6-week bans, the proposed bill will outlaw nearly all abortions. Most people don’t know that they’re pregnant just six weeks into pregnancy, and the rape and incest ‘exceptions’ in the bill are, predictably, nonsense. Florida victims would only be able to get care up until the 15th week of pregnancy, and would be required to “provide a copy of a restraining order, police report, medical record, or other court order” to prove that they’ve really been attacked. It’s a hurdle that will keep the vast majority of victims from seeking care. And because the legislation states that anyone who “actively participates in” an abortion can be arrested, the soon-to-be law could criminalize those who lend a friend money for an abortion, or drive them to get one.
Book says that the bill isn’t popular; even some of her Republican colleagues tell her that it’s “barbaric and wrong, crazy and over-the-top.” Still, she doesn’t think it’s likely to change much—and it’s hard to imagine a scenario where it doesn’t pass.
“This is really rough, really hard and really painful to sit through,” Book tells me. Then she says something I know a lot of us have felt at some point since Roe was overturned: “I feel like I’m letting women and girls down.” When I respond that she’s not being very fair to herself, she doesn’t hesitate: “This is happening during my watch.”
If you want to know what kind of woman Book is, consider that a few years back she decided to find out what anti-abortion centers were really like by going undercover: She got urine from a pregnant friend, and went to a center with another woman who posed as a sexual assault victim. Book describes the fliers making false connections between abortion and cancer, and an adoption book filled with prospective families—all of them straight, white and Christian. But it was the ‘counseling’ session she remembers most: The staff member told the women that having an abortion would be far more traumatic than being raped, something Book took particular offense to as a sexual violence survivor.
Florida Republicans’ abortion ban seeks to increase funding to these centers from just over $4 million to $25 million. Book says they keep talking about giving women car seats and cribs, “but how about healthcare?”
The truth is that Book is furious—not just as a politician or a woman, but as a mother. She has twins, a son and a daughter. “The day they were born they had the same amount of rights, and today they don’t,” she says. “The trajectory of my daughter’s life has changed because she has a vagina.”
Book is afraid for her daughter and all the girls in Florida, but she knows exactly who will suffer most acutely as a result of the ban. She points out that her Republican colleagues’ girlfriends will always be able to leave the state for abortions—it’s the most vulnerable women and girls who are most in danger. After all, we’ve all seen the maternal mortality rates. We know what happens next and who it happens to; we know the kinds of stories that will start to stream out of the state as the ban takes effect.
“You want a woman to carry around a dead fetus as she goes septic? That’s your vision of freedom for the state of Florida? That’s despicable.”
I ask her about the possibility of a ballot measure. With successes in Kentucky and Kansas, and a proposed Ohio measure coming down the line, surely activists in Florida have considered it. Book responds that it’s “the only way forward.” They’re relying on Planned Parenthood, she says, to look at the possibility and the money involved.
Speaking with Book, it’s hard not to feel emotional. Working in a system designed to make your work impossible while trying to fight to keep women alive has to take a toll. But she doesn’t seem defeated or downtrodden, just desperately angry.
“I need and want people to pay attention. Where is the uprising? Where is the outrage? Where are people?” Book describes seeing TikToks of the teachers’ strike in Los Angeles, and wondering why Florida women aren’t doing the same: “Why aren’t all the women walking out and saying ‘fuck you’?”
When I ask how people can help—in or outside of Florida—Book talks about abortion funds, and how important it is that Florida activists and politicians are setting up structures that help with the inevitable fallout from the law. Most of all, she says, what comes next is a matter of community: “We need to band together.”
For a list of abortion funds in Florida, click here. The bill is scheduled for its last committee hearing (and last opportunity for public comment) on Tues, 3/28.
Your comment makes sense and it’s well presented although I take issue with some of it. Way too many people voted for Trump and for Republicans, although I’m not one of them. We’ve been waiting for young voters to turn out and vote in larger numbers but it’s not happening. Many of us hate Trump and many of us are still marching and sending money to liberal candidates. I’m tired of the generational sniping and it doesn’t serve either of us.
The sign I carry at protests says, “They won’t stop at Roe.”