Thousands donate to save Florida abortion clinic amid crippling state fines

Just a few weeks ago, one of the few abortion clinics left in Orlando, Florida, looked like it would have to close its doors. A government agency had ordered it to pay $193,000 in fines – enough to potentially bankrupt the clinic.

But supporters of the clinic, the Center of Orlando for Women, had an idea: they would crowdfund the money to keep it open. Within days, they succeeded.

As of Friday, the fundraiser had amassed more than $199,000 from roughly 5,500 donors. Many of the donations were less than $50.

“I’ll never forget how those protesters traumatized me as a scared teen making the hardest decision of my life,” wrote one donor who gave $5. “I one day hope to go back there and support women the way you do.”

Had the Center of Orlando for Women gone dark, abortion patients across the south would have been affected. Because Florida is one of the few southern states that still permits abortion, it saw a greater surge in patients seeking the procedure than any other state in the country after Roe v Wade collapsed last year, according to researchers from the Society of Family Planning.

But the future of the procedure in the state is decidedly uncertain. Although Florida already bans abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy, Ron DeSantis, the governor, signed a six-week abortion ban into law earlier this year. (It is currently on hold pending a review by the state’s supreme court of the 15-week ban.)

The fines arose from a 2015 law that mandated patients wait 24 hours between getting an initial consultation for an abortion and undergoing the procedure. Litigation put that law on ice for seven years, but in April last year, a judge agreed to let it take effect. A few weeks later, that judge issued a court order confirming that the 24-hour waiting period was now law.

There was one problem with that order, according to Julie Gallagher, an attorney for the Center of Orlando for Women: : no one told the center about it.

Over the course of three weeks in April and May last year, the center called the Agency for Health Care Administration – the Florida bureau that regulates abortion – more than a dozen times, trying to get information about the 24-hour law, according to court records and notes from the clinic.

“The agency wouldn’t tell them anything,” Gallagher said. “You’re calling the regulators to try to get some guidance on what your current obligations are. And they’re saying they don’t know. Well, they knew. They just weren’t telling.”

The Agency of Health Care Administration ultimately accused the Center of Orlando for Women of performing 193 abortions without waiting the now-required 24 hours, according to court records. The agency then fined the center $1,000 for each of those abortions – almost three times more than a judge’s recommendation.

The Center of Orlando for Women was not the only abortion clinic to receive fines over the new law: out of the 55 licensed abortion clinics in Florida, 14 had failed to comply, a staffer at the Agency for Health Care Administration testified in court. At least 11 were ordered to pay fines; of those, the center received the largest fine by far. Some clinics were also able to settle for lower fines.

For Gallagher, the astronomical fines facing the center are evidence that the clinic is getting “picked on”.

“I think they think if a few abortion clinics go out of business, then that’s a good thing, under this current climate and this current administration,” Gallagher said. “Nobody is too worried about the impact of the fines on abortion clinics.”

The Agency for Health Care Administration didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment about the situation.

Florida state representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat who represents Orlando, made no secret of why she thinks Florida slammed the center with such heavy fines.

“This is a local abortion provider that is being charged excessive fees by AHCA all designed to shut them down,” Eskamani tweeted in August. She then shared a link to the fundraiser.