State politicians should stay out of private health decisions, especially regarding abortion | Commentary

Lillian Tamayo

As the midpoint of Florida’s legislative session nears, the Republican majority is prioritizing passage of an abortion ban like the Mississippi law currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Most people I talk to are concerned about things like their rents rising faster than their incomes or not being able to afford their rising property insurance rates. Too many Floridians still have no access to health care, even in the midst of a pandemic. Again, it’s an out-of-step Governor and Legislature who refuse to expand access to Medicaid to cover about 800,000 more people in Florida. Both Democratic and Republican state governments across the country have done just that because it makes good sense.

To give you an idea of how extreme this bill is, consider a patient story our Associate Medical Director, Dr. Samantha Deans, shared as part of her testimony against this bill before the Senate Health Policy committee.

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Dr. Deans had recently cared for an 11-year-old girl who was raped by her stepfather. She was too young and too scared to know that she was pregnant, much less admit to anyone what had happened to her. When she began to show, her mother took her to the doctor where she was diagnosed as 23 weeks pregnant. With the support of her mother, she had an abortion. If the 15-week abortion ban that could be the law in Florida by this summer were in effect today, this 11-year-old girl would have been forced by the state to give birth, endangering her life and robbing her of her childhood. This is the worst kind of political interference in our most personal and private decisions about our own bodies.

In the 22 years I’ve had the honor to work with our dedicated and compassionate health care providers at Planned Parenthood health centers, I’ve never once heard one of them say a patient consulted with a politician before making their own decision.

At Planned Parenthood we respect the diverse experience, beliefs and needs of our patients. We should demand no less of those we elect. Our state representatives and senators, and governor, they work for us. We sent them to Tallahassee to represent our best interests, not to politicize our access to health care and strip away our fundamental rights to privacy and bodily autonomy.

A large majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade. Same with Floridians. People want to be left alone from politicians mucking around in their lives. We all know some politician in Tallahassee doesn’t know better than we do what’s best for us when it comes to our own bodies, our own health.

This abortion ban is unconstitutional. It’s extreme. And if it becomes the law, make no mistake about it, any Floridian who can become pregnant, including children, will have politicians deciding what’s best for them when they’ve been raped or have a fetal anomaly or countless other unique reasons a person could have for desiring not to continue a pregnancy. And that’s really the point, isn’t it?

It shouldn’t matter what the reason is because there is never justification for the long arm of government to reach into an exam room where we’re making personal and private decisions with our health care providers. Not ever.

Lillian Tamayo is the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood South, East and North Florida, and a member of the Palm Beach Post's Editorial Advisory Board. Kevin Wagner's Civics Project column will return to this spot next week.