FORT MYERS, Fla. — At a Planned Parenthood health center on Florida’s Gulf Coast, new restrictions on who can get an abortion are shaking up routines and creating challenges for the clinic’s patients, doctors and nurses.
The center, in Fort Myers, has seen a steady influx of patients from Texas since last September, when a ban on all but the earliest abortions took effect there, and from other states that have tightened access to the procedure over the past year.
It is also adjusting to a waiting period that took effect in Florida in April after years of litigation, requiring patients seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound and then wait at least 24 hours before returning for the actual procedure. And a new state law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, instead of the current 24 weeks, is set to take effect on July 1, although Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers in the state have sued to try to block it.
