HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES STAFF ANALYSIS
BILL #: CS/HB 7 Pregnancy and Parenting Support
SPONSOR(S): Health & Human Services Committee, Persons-Mulicka and others
TIED BILLS: IDEN./SIM. BILLS: SB 300
REFERENCE ACTION ANALYST STAFF DIRECTOR or
BUDGET/POLICY
CHIEF
1) Healthcare Regulation Subcommittee 13 Y, 5 N McElroy McElroy
2) Health & Human Services Committee 13 Y, 7 N, As CS McElroy Calamas
SUMMARY ANALYSIS
The Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program (FPSSP) provides pregnancy support services and wellness
services to eligible clients. Pregnancy support services are services that promote and encourage childbirth,
including direct client services, program awareness activities, and communication activities. Wellness services
are services or activities intended to maintain and improve health or prevent illness and injury. Eligible clients
include pregnant women and their families.
CS/HB 7 expands the types of services that may be provided through the FPSSP to include parenting services,
nonmedical material assistance, counseling, mentoring, education materials, and classes on pregnancy,
parenting, adoption, life skills and employment readiness. The bill also expands eligibility for services to include
adoptive parents of children under age three and their families. These provisions become effective upon
becoming law.
Current law prohibits abortions if the gestational age of the fetus is more than 15 weeks, with a medical
exception and an exception for fatal fetal anomalies. The bill prohibits abortions if the gestational age of the
fetus is more than 6 weeks, and retains the medical and fatal fetal anomaly exceptions. The bill adds an
exception for rape and incest if the fetus is less than 15 weeks of age and the woman seeking the abortion
provides certain documentation. The bill also deletes all provisions in current law related to the viability
standard, including the prohibition against abortions after viability, as these provisions are no longer necessary.
Medication abortion is a two-step, two-drug, process that does not require surgical intervention. Current law
does not regulate how physicians dispense these abortion-inducing drugs, or the use of telehealth to provide
abortions. The bill requires abortion-inducing drugs to be dispensed in person by a physician, and expressly
prohibits the use of telehealth for abortions.
Currently, Florida law does not prohibit the use of state funds for reimbursement of travel expenses for
abortion. The bill prohibits the use of state funds to pay for the travel out-of-state to obtain an abortion except
for cases of medical emergencies and when federal law requires states to pay for such travel.
The abortion provisions of the bill will only take effect if specified events occur that change Florida’s
jurisprudence on the privacy clause in the state constitution.
The bill appropriates $30 million in recurring General Revenue to the Department of Health. The bill has no
fiscal impact on local government.
The bill becomes effective upon becoming law.
This docum ent does not reflect the intent or official position of the bill sponsor or House of Representatives .
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 FULL ANALYSIS
I. SUBSTANTIVE ANALYSIS
A. EFFECT OF PROPOSED CHANGES:
Present Situation
Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program
The Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program (FPSSP) was created in 2005, in proviso in the
General Appropriations Act, to encourage women to carry their pregnancies to term, and increase
awareness of non-abortion counseling options, such as parenting or adoption. 1 In 2018, the Legislature
created s. 381.96, F.S. to codify the FPSSP in Florida Statutes.
Current law requires the Department of Health (DOH) to contract with the Florida Pregnancy Care
Network, Inc. (FPCN), to manage subcontracts with the direct service providers throughout the state to
provide services under the FPSSP.2 The contract with FPCN must:3
 Require that FPCN establish and manage subcontracts with a sufficient number of providers to
ensure the availability pregnancy support and wellness services for eligible clients;
 Require that 90 percent of contract funds be used on pregnancy support and wellness services
for eligible clients;
 Require that FPCN ensures that all paid staff and volunteers of the providers undergo
background screenings if they provide direct client services to eligible clients who are minors,
elderly, or have a disability;
 Require FPCN to annually monitor the providers for compliance with subcontract provisions and
define the actions to be taken for noncompliance;
 Limit the providers with which FPCN may contract to those that solely promote and support
childbirth;
 Provide that any informational materials provided to an eligible client by a provider must be
current and accurate, with the reference source of any medical statement made available; and
 Define the contract deliverables, including financial reports and other reports due to DOH,
timeframes for achieving contractual obligations, and any other requirements that DOH
determines necessary, such as staffing and location requirements.
The FPSSP provides pregnancy support services and wellness services to eligible clients. Pregnancy
support services are services that promote and encourage childbirth, including direct client services,
program awareness activities, and communication activities 4. Direct client services include, but are not
limited to:
 Pregnancy testing;
 Counseling;
 Training; and
 Education.
Wellness services are services or activities intended to maintain and improve health or prevent illness
and injury, including but not limited to:
 Anemia testing;
1 Florida Pregnancy Care Network, Inc., Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program (FPSSP), 2016-2017 Compliance Manual, on file
with the Health Quality Subcommittee.
2
S. 381.96, F.S.
3 Id.
4 Communication activities, include the operation and maintenance of a hotline or call center with a single statewide toll -free number
that is available 24 hours a day for an eligible client to obtain the location and contact information for a pregnancy center located in the
client’s area.
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  Assistance with smoking cessation; and
 Screenings for high blood pressure, thyroid functioning, cholesterol, and diabetes.
State-funded pregnancy support services and wellness services must be provided in a noncoercive
manner and may not include any religious content.
Current law requires the FPSSP to operate a 24-hour toll-free hotline. The hotline must provide an
eligible client with the location and contact information for a pregnancy center located in the client's
area.5
Eligible clients include a pregnant woman or a woman who suspects she is pregnant, and her family,
who voluntarily seeks pregnancy support services, and any woman who voluntarily seeks wellness
services. A woman and her family are eligible for direct client services for up to 12 months after the
birth of the child. Adoptive parents and their families are not expressly eligible for FPSSP services.
Currently, 53 subcontractors, in 102 center locations, provide services in the FPSSP. In Fiscal Year
2021-2022 the FPSSP fielded 9,463 hotline calls and provided 143,000 services to over 42,000 women
and their families.6 The FPSSP is currently funded with $4.5 million recurring General Revenue. 7
Federal Law on Abortion
In 1973, the foundation of modern abortion jurisprudence, Roe v. Wade8, was decided by the U.S.
Supreme Court (Supreme Court). The Supreme Court determined that a woman’s right to an abortion is
part of a fundamental right to privacy guaranteed under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Further, the Court reasoned that state regulation limiting the
exercise of this right is subject to strict scrutiny: it must be justified by a compelling state interest, and
must be narrowly drawn.9 In 1992, the fundamental holding of Roe was upheld by the U.S. Supreme
Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.10
The Viability Standard
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court established a rigid trimester framework dictating when, if ever,
states can regulate abortion.11 The Court held that states could not regulate abortions during the first
trimester of pregnancy.12 With respect to the second trimester, the Court held that states could only
enact regulations aimed at protecting the mother’s health, not the fetus’s life. Therefore, no ban on
abortions is permitted during the second trimester. The state’s interest in the life of the fetus becomes
sufficiently compelling only at the beginning of the third trimester, allowing it to prohibit abortions. Even
then, the Court requires states to permit an abortion in circumstances necessary to preserve the health
or life of the mother.13
The current viability standard is set forth in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.14 Recognizing that medical
advancements in neonatal care can advance viability to a point somewhat earlier than the third
trimester, the Supreme Court rejected the trimester framework and, instead, limited the states’ ability to
regulate abortion pre-viability. Thus, while upholding the underlying holding in Roe, which authorizes
states to “regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical
judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother[,]” 15 the Court determined that the line
5 S. 381.96, F.S.
6 Florida Pregnancy Care Network, Inc., Florida Pregnancy Care Network Annual Report 2021-2022, on file with the Healthcare
Regulation Subcommittee.
7 Id.
8 Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
9 Id.
10 Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).
11 Roe, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
12 Id. at 163-64.
13 Id. at 164-165.
14 Planned Parenthood of SE Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).
15 See Roe, 410 U.S. at 164-65.
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 for this authority should be drawn at “viability,” because “there may be some medical developments that
affect the precise point of viability . . . but this is an imprecision within tolerable limits given that the
medical community and all those who must apply its discoveries will continue to explore the matter.” 16
Furthermore, the Court recognized that “[i]n some broad sense it might be said that a woman who fails
to act before viability has consented to the State’s intervention on behalf of the developing child.” 17
The Undue Burden Standard
In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court established the undue burden standard for
determining whether a law places an impermissible obstacle to a woman’s right to an abortion. The
Court held that health regulations which impose undue burdens on the right to abortion are invalid.18
State regulation imposes an “undue burden” on a woman's decision to have an abortion if it has the
purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of the woman who seeks the abortion of a
nonviable fetus.19 However, the court opined, not every law which makes the right to an abortion more
difficult to exercise is an infringement of that right.20
The Medical Emergency Exception
In Doe v. Bolton, the Supreme Court was faced with determining, among other things, whether a
Georgia statute criminalizing abortions (pre- and post-viability), except when determined to be
necessary based upon a physician’s “best clinical judgment,” was unconstitutionally void for vagueness
for inadequately warning a physician under what circumstances an abortion could be performed. 21 In its
reasoning, the Court agreed with the district court decision that the exception was not unconstitutionally
vague, by recognizing that:
[T]he medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional,
psychological, familial, and the woman's age-relevant to the well-being of the patient. All
these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs
to make his best medical judgment.22
This broad interpretation of what constitutes a medical emergency was later tested in Casey 23, albeit in
a different context. One question before the Supreme Court in Casey was whether the medical
emergency exception to a 24-hour waiting period for an abortion was too narrow in that there were
some potentially significant health risks that would not be considered “immediate.” 24 The exception in
question provided that a medical emergency is:
[T]hat condition which, on the basis of the physician’s good faith clinical judgment, so
complicates the medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate
abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of
substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.25
In evaluating the more objective standard under which a physician is to determine the existence of a
medical emergency, the Court in Casey determined that the exception would not significantly threaten
the life and health of a woman and imposed no undue burden on the woman’s right to have an
abortion.26
16 See Casey, 505 U.S. at 870.
17
Id.
18 Id. at 878.
19 Id. at 877
20 Id. at 873.
21 Doe, 410 U.S. at 179 (1973). Other exceptions, such as in cases of rape and when, “[t]he fetus would very likely be born with a
grave, permanent, and irremediable mental or physical defect.” Id. at 183. See also, U.S. v. Vuitich, 402 U.S. 62, 71-72 (1971)
(determining that a medical emergency exception to a criminal statute banning abortions would include consideration of the menta l
health of the pregnant woman).
22 Doe, 410 U.S. at 192.
23 Casey, 505. U.S. 833 (1992).
24 Id. at 880.
25 Id. at 879 (quoting 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3203 (1990)).
26 Id. at 880.
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 Jackson Women’s Health Organization v. Dobbs
In 2018, Mississippi enacted the Gestational Age Act (Act) which prohibited a person from performing
an abortion if the probable gestational age of the fetus is greater than 15 weeks. Jackson Women’s
Health Organization filed a lawsuit challenging the Act alleging that it was an unconstitutional pre-
viability ban on abortion. The state argued the Act was a constitutional restriction on abortion. The
federal trial court ruled in favor of Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was upheld by the Fifth
Circuit of Appeals.27 The state appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. In June 2021, the Supreme
Court ruled in favor of the state and overruled Roe and Casey. The Court held that the Constitution
does not provide a right to abortion and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and
their elected representatives.28 Thus, whether an abortion regulation is unconstitutional must be
determined on the respective constitution of each state rather than the Constitution.
Florida Abortion Law
Privacy Clause
The Florida Constitution, as interpreted by Florida courts, affords greater privacy rights than
those provided by the U.S. Constitution. While the federal Constitution traditionally shields
enumerated and implied individual liberties from state or federal intrusion, the Supreme Court
has noted that state constitutions may provide greater protections. 29 Unlike the U.S.
Constitution, Article I, s. 23 of the Florida Constitution contains an express right to privacy:
Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from
governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as otherwise
provided herein. This section shall not be construed to limit the public’s
right of access to public records and meetings as provided by law.
The Florida Supreme Court opined in In re T.W. that this section provides greater privacy rights than
those implied by the U.S. Constitution.30
The Florida Supreme Court has recognized Florida’s constitutional right to privacy “is clearly implicated
in a woman’s decision whether or not to continue her pregnancy.”31 In In re T.W., the Florida Supreme
Court ruled that:32
[P]rior to the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision must be left to
the woman and may not be significantly restricted by the state. Following