The fight for reproductive justice in Florida is ‘not over,’ say advocates

“We’re going to ensure that our voices are heard,” says Charo Valero of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, who spoke with Floricua on the importance of keeping up the work to provide the healthcare women need after the defeat of Amendment 4. 

Charo Valero is not dissuaded. 

The Miami-based, Florida State Manager at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice was disappointed, sure, that last year’s abortion rights ballot measure failed to pass, but she still regards the effort with pride. 

“What we did last year was incredible. We built a beautiful movement, the first and largest ballot initiative in the south. The majority of voters in Florida supported Amendment 4, and in any other state this would have been a landslide win,” Valero told Floricua. 

Amendment 4 would have overturned Gov. Ron DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban and enshrined the right to abortion until fetal viability (usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy) in the state Constitution. The measure faced strong opposition from DeSantis, who used every tactic he could to try and defeat it — including using taxpayer funds to run ads against the amendment, threatening to sue local TV stations for airing pro-Amendment 4 ads, and sending law enforcement to the homes of people who signed the petition to put the measure on the ballot.

The amendment needed at least 60% of the vote to pass under Florida law, and ultimately received only 57% of the vote. 

“Amendment 4 failed because Florida has that 60% threshold to pass,” said Valero. “Also, there was a lot of state-sponsored misinformation and disinformation out there. As somebody who was out there canvassing specifically in Spanish for months, we found a lot of support from folks, regardless of party affiliation. But the saddest thing was how much confusion there was.”

Floricua spoke to Valero more about Amendment 4’s failure and where the reproductive rights movement goes from here. The below interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Who would you say has been the most impacted by the defeat of the amendment?

It impacts mostly folks who are already at the margins. If you don’t have the resources to go to New York, if you don’t have the resources to go to Colombia, if you don’t have the immigration status to leave the country, or to travel freely within the United States without being fearful, if you can’t take time off from work, there are a lot of barriers, and you can’t get care.

[This is a form of] forced motherhood. And there’s also that pregnancy can be dangerous for some people, especially in one of the states with the highest maternal mortality rates. The consequences are forcing somebody to remain pregnant, and I can’t imagine anything more dystopian than that.

What other areas of a woman’s health or procreative choices are affected by the defeat of this measure?

When you attack abortion care, you’re attacking comprehensive reproductive care in general, because there was a lot of confusion with doctors, what they can and cannot do. They become scared of practicing. So, doctors leave the state. When an abortion care is attacked, reproductive health care in general is attacked. Especially when you attack immigrant women.

How does it negatively impact immigrant women?

The impact of immigration policies also creates a climate of fear. Immigrant women find themselves in a position to not seek preventative or life-saving care. For example, in a state where an undocumented person cannot get a driver’s license, driving without a license is a crime that they can be deported for. So undocumented women are constantly making decisions: “If I go to this doctor’s appointment, if I take my kid to school…” And when things like that happen, it’s typically preventative care that suffers.

What are the next steps for pro-choice advocates?

I can’t speak to all advocates, but I can speak to the work that I’m doing. First of all, it’s to continue to be a reliable resource and a political home for our people, as we’ve continued to do so for 30 years. Because there’s a lot of disinformation, there’s a lot of fear, so continuing to be a reliable resource, continuing to educate our ‘poderosas [powerful women].’ We will continue to work with partners in our ecosystem that are training people to know their rights, so that people know and have the resources to fight back and connecting people with resources. We’re an advocacy organization about partnering with those that offer services, so that we can connect people with resources, because in the end, that’s what’s drying up.

You have mentioned your concern about the anti-abortion centers across Florida that present as abortion clinics.

I continue to be alarmed by the anti-abortion centers. They’re deceptive and they’re misleading, and in Florida, specifically, they get over $30 million annually from the state. The Department of Health report showed that most of the money actually goes to advertising. So, it’s another way of having state sponsored disinformation, and there’s hundreds of centers across Florida. I’m really committed to understanding these centers, and how we can reduce the impact and the harm that they’re causing to our community.

In light of the defeat of Amendment 4, what resources are available for women who may need a life-saving procedure, for example, and the doctor says she’s not “sick enough” to get the help she needs?

I think the best thing is to connect yourself with, first, the abortion funds. Florida has six abortion funds, and they help with funding care, supporting travel, if you need childcare, if you need somebody to guide you through the process.

RELATED: Amendment 4 fails, leaving Florida’s 6-week abortion ban in place

So, again, I think the first step is connecting with abortion funds and advocates who might know this process best, because people don’t know what they can do and what the law [permits]. Unfortunately, that’s what happens when there are so many barriers and there’s just so much confusion and so many things going on. 

For example, if they go to Planned Parenthood, which is not the only place for folks to get care, there are other independent providers, but Planned Parenthood has patient navigators, and these individual people help folks navigate their individual needs. The first step is asking for help and reaching out to abortion funds, and organizations like ours, asking for help. It’s good to distinguish that our organization does advocacy work, we don’t do service work, but as advocacy organizations, we are connected to partners that do service work. 

There are too many barriers to getting help and it can get really overwhelming and confusing. It’s a six-week ban, so the clock is ticking. And if you choose to get out of state, there’s an extra layer of affordability and time. So, definitely, asking for help is important.

If it’s on the immigration front, there are hotlines, a lot of different resources, and I know that the hardest thing is sometimes people even knowing that those resources exist. We hear through our “poderosas” who are out in our communities and have neighbors and daughters and sisters and friends who might need care, and they don’t know who to call. So, folks reach out to me, and I connect them with resources.

How can a woman find out if she’s mistakenly gone into an anti-abortion clinic?

The thing about these anti-abortion centers is that they are intentionally deceptive, so they look like a clinic where you might go to seek care. And then once you’re in there, there are Bibles, there are threats, or if you’re a minor, there are threats of telling your parents, because they are not clinics, so they don’t comply with things like HIPAA [the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a federal law that protects patients’ health information and gives them rights for their records]. So, they don’t have to worry about confidentiality.

They also don’t have medical staff or maybe they’ll go in and they’ll check your blood pressure. Once you’re in there, abortion care is not only not an option, but that is something that you’re dissuaded and shamed for seeking. And the clock continues to tick, and you are confused, you are shamed. If you go to a Planned Parenthood, you have gynecologists, you have nurses; these are clinics.

What can regular people do to support the pro-choice efforts?

I like to call it reproductive justice, because reproductive justice is a movement about choosing when you want a family, if you want that family, and being able to parent and raise your family in safe spaces where your family thrives. So, this is beyond pro-choice. This is about reproductive justice. I think what we can do is: If we have resources, then our resources are money, our time, our knowledge. If you feel safe to do so, combat shame and stigma and disinformation. If you have the time, the money and the capacity, join an organization, volunteer.

Finally, I would like to add that it’s not over. No matter who’s in office, we’re going to ensure that our voices are heard and that lawmakers listen to and address our needs. We’re not going to just stand by while extremists take away our freedoms.

RELATED: Abortion rights advocate calls Florida’s six-week abortion ban ‘extraordinarily dangerous’