Palm Beach Gardens woman tells of her abortion experience as Democrats vow to protect rights

WEST PALM BEACH — When Penny Causey was 16, she learned she was pregnant. Her parents, she said, gave her several choices. Ultimately, she decided to have an abortion.

It was 1976, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Constitution protects women’s choice to get the procedure. Causey was not ready for kids, she said. She wanted to go to college.

So her parents drove her three hours from their small Tennessee town to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic to end her pregnancy.

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“I have no regrets as hard as it was. I’m grateful that I had the choice,” Causey said Monday at a news conference held by U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, a West Palm Beach Democrat, at the federal courthouse on Clematis Street.

Weeks after five justices of the Supreme Court ended 49 years of federal protection to anyone seeking abortions, Frankel and state Sen. Lori Berman, a south Palm Beach County Democrat, touted legislation on Monday to codify women’s right to choose into federal and state law. But, they acknowledged, Republicans will block their bills.

Frankel is co-sponsoring the Women’s Health Protection Act in the U.S. House, which aims to override state bans on abortion access with a federal law allowing it. The bill would effectively codify Roe v. Wade.

The nation’s highest court on June 24 overturned the landmark decision, allowing states to outlaw the practice or severely restrict it. Florida bans abortions after 15 weeks, including for victims of rape and incest.

“We expect that half of states in this country will not permit abortion, and others are going to restrict it,” Frankel said. And while the Women’s Health Protection Act will likely pass the Democrat-controlled House, she noted, “That bill has to pass in the Senate, and that is not likely.”

After House Democrats passed a previous version of the bill in September, it died in the Senate in February when not enough members of that chamber voted to overcome a Republican-led filibuster, a tactic used to delay passage of legislation.

Ending a filibuster requires 60 votes. Only 46 senators voted to end it. And 48 — all but one were Republicans — voted against ending it, including both of Florida’s senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.

Rubio, Scott, their 48 Republican colleagues and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia also voted against ending a filibuster on a similar Senate bill in May.

Rubio is up for reelection November. His main Democratic rival, U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Orlando, voted for the first version of the Women’s Health Protection Act. She has said she would vote to end the filibuster if elected to the Senate.

Marco Rubio says overturning Roe v. Wade the right choice 'morally'

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Rubio praised the decision. “Today’s decision by the Supreme Court to allow states to regulate abortion was right constitutionally and morally,” Rubio said June 24 in a statement, adding that the right to end pregnancy denied rights to “more than 63 million Americans (who) never got the chance to pursue their dreams.”

Democrats and Republicans each hold 50 seats in the Senate.

State Sen. Berman said she would introduce a bill next year that aims to codify abortion rights into state law.

Berman’s bill would mirror the one she filed in March, the Reproductive Health Care Rights Act. It could effectively end Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which the GOP-dominated Legislature passed this year and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in April. It took effect July 1.

But, with Republicans occupying 76 of 120 seats in the state House and 23 of 40 seats in the state Senate, GOP lawmakers effectively killed Berman’s efforts to restore these rights for women. DeSantis has not said whether he will push to limit abortion access further if reelected in November.

“I truly believe that none of my Republican colleagues will support the bill at this time either,” Berman said Monday. “I’d like to see that we do have some moderate Republicans but unfortunately I don’t feel that there are any Republicans in the Florida House that will support this legislation.”

All Republican state House members representing parts of Palm Beach County — John Snyder, Rick Roth and Mike Caruso — voted in favor of the 15-week ban, as did state Sen. Gayle Harrell, whose district covers parts of north county. All will face Democratic opponents in November, except Harrell, who is running unopposed.

Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, desperate women and girls have flooded clinics of Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida from out of state, spokeswoman Christina Noce said at the press conference Monday.

Last week alone, Noce said, the health-care nonprofit saw 40 patients from other states with outright abortion bans or more restrictions than Florida. “Right now there is an abortion desert across the South,” she said. “They are coming to Florida for care.”

Planned Parenthood clinics are expanding hours across the state, running on weekends and hiring doctors from states where abortion is outlawed, Noce said. “They can’t help people in their own state,” she said, so they’ve agreed to fly to Florida several times a month to perform the medical procedure.

Noce mentioned a recent case where some women flew in from Texas and walked from Palm Beach International Airport to a Planned Parenthood clinic, and with no appointment, hoped to be seen by a doctor.

Planned Parenthood sued Florida over its 15-week abortion ban. A judge ruled to place an injunction on the ban, but the state immediately appealed and the ban went back into effect.

“It is surreal to me that we are still fighting this fight,” Causey said. “The war should have ended in 1973. There will be vast casualties once again.”

Chris Persaud is The Palm Beach Post's data reporter. Email him at cpersaud@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida woman shares abortion story at Lois Frankel news conference