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The Florida senate voted 26–13 on Monday to pass a bill establishing a six-week legal limit on elective abortion.
The bill, titled the Heartbeat Protection Act, is expected to pass the Florida house of representatives this week before heading to the desk of Governor Ron DeSantis, who has said he will sign it into law.
Florida’s six-week abortion limit will have a few exceptions: The bill allows legal abortion up to 15 weeks of pregnancy if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape, incest, or human trafficking; and in the case of fatal fetal abnormality, it allows abortion until the start of the third trimester of pregnancy.
The six-week bill maintains the existing exception in Florida abortion law for cases in which the life or physical health of the mother is at risk. Similar to the provisions of the 15-week limit that has been in effect in Florida since the summer of 2022, the six-week bill states that a physician may not knowingly perform an abortion later than six weeks of pregnancy unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother or “avert a serious risk” of “substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman other than a psychological condition.” In order to invoke the life or physical-health exception, the bill requires any two physicians to certify, in their reasonable medical judgment, that the abortion is necessary, but a second physician’s certification is not required in an emergency.
The 15-week bill has been enforced since shortly after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade in June of last year, but it is facing a challenge before the state supreme court, where an earlier ruling declaring a state constitutional right to abortion is likely to be overturned. That case will be heard this summer and will likely be decided by the fall. The six-week bill will not take effect until a month after the expected state supreme court ruling upholding the 15-week limit.