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.
As a Floridian woman who has lived here my entire life, I can understand the question Senator Book as asking where the outrage is. I and many of us did not vote for this legislature or Governor. I spoke out on social media to tell people why not to vote for the Governor and I regularly update on what's going on with these insane laws, it is almost impossible to keep up- I am dismayed at the lack of response and the lack of others doing the same. I also understand that it is getting harder and harder to survive here and when survival is top of mind, advocacy seems like a luxury. Especially when there's a republican supermajority and courts that do exactly what the governor wants no matter the citizen's views or what the law says. Senator Book is in office trying to fight this and feels helpless, how do you think ordinary citizens feel? Florida doesn't have worker protections like California, wages are low and cost of living is increasingly high. People can't afford to risk their jobs. People who go to speak at hearings aren't allowed to speak or are cut off after 1 minute. There are laws against protesting. This is not said to be an excuse. I contact my representatives and congressional Committees, I encourage others to do so as well even if it feels like it will fall on deaf ears because if we say nothing at all then nothing will change. But too many people here either still aren't paying attention or didn't believe us when we tried to warn them and now the systems are even more stacked against us. Make sure this doesn't happen in your state and make sure Desantis doesn't become President.
Great insights and an excellent post. I don't know. I just feel like those of us who are watching this in real time are seeing how much we've become like Weimar Germany in the 1920s, a relatively liberal society beset with lots of economic and societal turmoil, that is brick by brick becoming a bigoted cruel authoritarian society with tremendous state violence towards out groups. That the GOP has pivoted within months from "women safety" to "women should face the death penalty" tells us that we're really not in a situation where we can work toward a common good. I can't persuade someone who thinks a woman should be executed for asserting her basic human rights. I can't seek common ground with someone who thinks children should bear children. It's distressing. Just need to emote. I don't really have an idea how we're going to fix it other than just going down fighting until the bitter end.