>>This week on NewsNight, as lawmakers in Tallahassee look set to pass a six week abortion ban with limited exceptions, what will the move mean for Florida residents and those in other southern states seeking the procedure?

Plus, a look at the sweeping changes likely coming to K through 12 education in Florida.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort, and welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect you.

First tonight, the future of abortion in our state.

Lawmakers this week debated a six week abortion ban, which is expected to pass the Republican controlled legislature.

The governor has indicated he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

The legislation includes rape and incest exceptions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Just as long as documentation can be provided to prove a crime was committed.

Well, my colleague Krystel Knowles has been talking to two activists who testified before hearings in Tallahassee on opposite sides of the debate.

And Krystel joins me now.

Krystel thank you so much for being here.

Let's start with the group Faith in Public Life, which is opposing this bill.

>>Yeah, they actually say that they support abortion rights in Florida and claim quite a few religious groups feel the same way.

Florida associate manager OdJuan Whitfield says he's lobbying for equitable reproductive health care and he thinks men need to stop trying to control women's bodies.

>>We essentially believe that we all struggle with difficulties in life, but we should be able to have the opportunity to to connect with our faith leaders, connect with our families, and connect with our God to make decisions about our bodies and our families and our futures.

And this type of legislation restricts us from doing that.

Restrict us from doing that.

And so we just believe that God is ultimately the judge in the ultimately our our are who we look for, for direction, not our legislators.

They are not in position, especially with all the given testimony about from from from professionals.

Right.

From all the testimony from professionals.

Legislators are not qualified to tell a woman what to do with their body.

They're just not qualified.

>>That was OdJuan Whitfield.

Krystel, you've also been hearing from the other side of this debate, right, where passions are also running high.

>>Yes.

So some in fact, some anti-abortion groups feel that this bill does not go far enough.

Florida voice for the Unborn Executive director Andrew Shirvell says even six weeks to terminate the pregnancy is too long.

>>I really believe that life begins from the moment of conception and that unique human being is formed.

And so if you believe, like I do and millions of people all across this country and globe do, then you know that this is one of the most fundamental issues that we are facing as a society today.

If it's not a life, then why?

Why would we want to prohibit abortion or any other kind of procedure surrounding the unborn children?

But if it's truly alive from the moment of conception, then I think we have an obligation as a society and in the civilized world to protect that life from its very beginnings, from its very foundations.

>>Thank you so much for your reporting, Krystel.

Really appreciate it.

Before we turn to our panel now, I talked this week with Chabeli Carrazana who covers the abortion issue in Florida for the 19th news.

>>We've seen, particularly across the south, most states in the south already have a six week ban following the model of what we saw come out of Texas last year.

And so Florida for some time had that 15 week ban.

It was a little bit unusual compared to some of its some other conservative states.

And so now what we have seen and what we had expected was sort of this wave of six week bans that was going to wash through all of these states, including Florida.

And that's where we are right now.

>>Critics say that a six week abortion ban is essentially a ban on abortion.

Why would they say that?

>>I think there's a little bit of a misunderstanding about exactly when in a pregnancy a person even finds out about their pregnancy.

And so if you are trying to get pregnant, the absolute earliest you would ever get a positive test would be around the four week mark.

If you are not trying to get pregnant and you are not watching for that, you're not testing for that, you might not get any symptoms until beyond the six week mark.

You might not realize that you've missed a period until around the six week mark.

And so by the time folks realize that they're pregnant, get tested, they are outside of the window to get an abortion in the state of Florida under this proposed bill.

And that's what that really means.

When you put in a six week ban, it means that abortion is essentially outlawed.

>>We've seen these six week bans, as you mentioned, in other states, particularly in the South.

So can we draw any conclusions from what we've seen so far in those states as to how this is likely to play out in Florida and what it will mean for for people seeking abortions here?

>>We saw, for example, a case in Texas of several women who had who were pregnant, had complications in those pregnancies.

These were wanted pregnancies that they had with their partners.

And in Texas, they could not get those abortions even though they needed them medically.

And so they had to leave the state they had to face.

One of them had sepsis.

So very serious medical conditions as a result of not having that abortion access in the state.

And, you know, we've seen a lot of folks who have gone on to have children who ultimately did not feel like they were in a position economically to have those children, they might have other children.

And so there's a lot of different reasons why a person might seek an abortion.

And what we're seeing in these states is these are people whose lives are literally at risk because they do not have that access.

And if you don't have resources to leave the state to get the cost, the cost, the money, the time off work, to be able to access an abortion elsewhere, you're stuck.

>>Chabeli Carrazana there from the 19th.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, Steven Lemongello covers politics for the Orlando Sentinel, a regular on the program.

Thanks for coming in today.

Really appreciate it.

And Karla Ray, investigative reporter and anchor at WFTV, Channel 9.

Thanks for coming in as well, Karla I really appreciate you guys time today.

Just a reminder, we record this show on Thursday morning so things can change by airtime as the House and Senate debate this legislation.

Steve, let me start with you on this six week abortion ban.

Does it seem to be a foregone conclusion in the legislature?

>>It seems to be.

It seems to be on the fast track there.

There are a few Republicans here in there who say, well, I promised my constituents I would 15 weeks would be it and I was going to stick to that.

But of course, I'm sure, you know, the the leadership has weighed in.

How many people they can afford for electoral reasons to not have to vote for this thing.

But it seems like this thing is going to sail through.

>>Yeah, Karla let's talk about how this might change the landscape of abortion in the South.

I mean, I think at the moment only North Carolina and South Carolina have sort of more permissive abortion laws, but they don't have that many abortion clinics.

How might this legislation in Florida affect other people in the south seeking abortions?

>>Yes.

So even though we had put in that 15 week restriction that, as you mentioned, is one of the more broad restrictions here in the South.

And actually, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration, about 6,700 people came from other states here to Florida last year alone to seek that abortion.

That was a big increase from 2021, a 37% increase.

So we know that that is happening as these bans go into place in other places.

So without Florida in the mix, it's going to be a question of can you make it to North Carolina?

Can you make it somewhere in the Midwest?

Even Puerto Rico has, you know, no restrictions or limited restrictions on abortion.

So some people are flying there.

>>So it could have wide ranging implications.

Of course, Mississippi was was sort of the vanguard of trying to test Roe versus Wade with that legislation.

Steve, the six week ban would include exceptions for rape and incest up to 15 weeks, but the victims got to show proof of a crime.

Right.

What would that entail?

>>Yeah, so.

They have to apply either a copy of a restraining order, a police report, medical record, a court document, all within 15 weeks.

And, of course, you know, this is a highly charged situation.

You know, a lot of rapes arent, you know, reported.

It's sometimes very hard to get proof, especially within like a limited time period like that.

So, yeah, that's going to be extremely difficult.

>>Not to mention if a woman is in a situation where she's afraid of this person.

We know from history that a lot of times those reports just aren't made.

>>And six weeks as we heard Chabeli make this point, a lot of women don't know they're pregnant.

So sort of gathering that paperwork, as Steve alluded to, that doesn't afford you a lot of time to get that done.

>>It would almost have to be a situation where, you know, you have a documentation months prior to something like this happening.

>>Yeah, this bill writing includes a large increase in funding for these anti abortion centers.

what are those facilities for sort of people who might not know kind of what sort of services do they provide?

>>Well they're framed as pregnancy crisis centers, not anti-abortion centers.

But that's essentially what they are.

If you've ever traveled up and down the turnpike, you've seen the billboards for these, it's pregnant, you have a choice.

And they get people in and they basically either convince them to give the baby up for adoption or to keep the baby.

And we know that in some cases, women just simply cannot afford that.

And the amount of money is kind of astonishing.

This is an increase of over $20 million to these centers from last year.

>>At the same time, though, abortion providers in Florida are facing penalties, right?

Under a previous legislation that was passed in 2015.

This actually sort of skipped me by what rule are they accused of violating and how do the clinics respond?

>>This is the 24 hour pause rule that was put into place years ago, that if you are seeking an abortion, you have to essentially wait for 24 hours after notifying a doctor that you want to get this procedure done.

And some of these clinics didn't even know that they were in violation.

It was paperwork issue or software issue.

And so it was kind of a surprise.

And it it was delayed because of a court battle over that rule.

>>And those penalties are pretty stiff and could could put, put a clinic out of business, I guess.

Steve, the White House has criticized this move in Tallahassee, but how are Florida Democrats responding to the six week abortion bill?

>>Florida Democrats really can't do much.

The Republicans have a supermajority now.

They can essentially do what they want and ignore the Democrats.

I you know, Lauren Book has said, okay, this is a war now.

This is a war you want, you know, we'll have a war.

But that's, you know, harsh rhetoric is really all they can do.

Really.

>>Yeah.

And certainly the Democrats that I talk to when the 15 week abortion ban came in and certainly said that they predicted that this is what the legislature was likely to try to do.

As we've discussed on the show before, one of the criticisms from opponents is that reducing abortion access can worsen maternal health outcomes.

Take a listen to this clip from an interview I did last year with Jennie Joseph, a midwife in Winter Garden after the passage of the 15 week abortion ban.

Take a look.

>>This is about health care.

This has always been about health care.

And now we have a situation for the most marginalized and those that are disenfranchized to have access points for their health and safety and well-being.

That's the biggest problem I see.

And we are going to be in dire straits as far as scrambling to provide extra ways and to circumvent essentially what's happened because there is no safety net now.

There never was really.

And now this has made it even worse.

>>Karla, the US has some of the worst maternal health outcomes of any developed nation.

Remind us why critics say that underserved populations in particular might suffer even worse if if the stricter abortion restrictions are put in place.

>>Well, we know that maternal mortality rates are much higher in black women, and we have a lot of rural areas in Florida that are just finding health care in those spots is few and far between and underserved areas.

And so if you think about the idea that these regular checkups need to happen, if abortion is not an option, you know, keeping the baby and the mother healthy throughout the pregnancy.

And if you don't have access to those types of services in your community, we could see worse outcomes when it comes to actually the delivery of that child.

>>You know, it's really interesting when talking about maternal health outcomes in sort of minority groups.

And when I talk to Jennie Joseph about this, she sort of said that, you know, a lot of black women in particular feel that they are not taken seriously in the medical field, that doctors sort of underappreciated the amount of pain they're in.

I guess that must be really difficult for certain parts of the population.

>>Absolutely.

And there's a whole movement now to get more black health care providers going into that particular niche of OBGYN and and those sort of services, because I have a lot of friends who say I would prefer to have a black doctor because I know that they will relate to me on that level and that they will understand what I'm saying is is true.

>>Yeah.

And there is a big shortage in this country for sure.

Steve, a lot of this is going to come down to the Florida Supreme Court, right.

Which is considering this challenge to Florida's 15 week abortion ban from clinics and doctors.

What is the basis of that challenge?

>>Well, the basis is enshrined in the Florida Constitution, a right to privacy.

The right to privacy.

Nationally, it was done away with by the Dobbs decision last year.

But Florida, Florida still has it.

And the question is, you know, a good chunk of that Supreme State Supreme Court was, you know, put there by DeSantis.

You know, a few from Scott.

So it's it's a heavily conservative leaning one.

So the question is just, you know, will they enjoy the lead of the conservatives in the US Supreme Court and sort of, you know, do away with that or even if not, do away with the right to privacy?

Say that, okay, there is a right to privacy, but it does not apply to abortions.

I think that's what the attorney general of the state is trying to say.

>>What do you think might come next as we sort of cast our eye across the nation to other states that have their eye on abortion?

Could we read into what they're doing maybe to sort of project forward in terms of Republican priorities in this state, do you think?

>>Yeah, there's just a lot of, you know, Republicans around the country who don't want abortion legal at all.

You know, zero, not even six weeks.

There's Idaho is trying to make it so that you would be penalized if you help someone leave the state to get an abortion.

Tennessee is a very, very strict law where a lot of critics say that essentially, you know, requires women to be on the verge of death before, you know, having to allow them to have a life saving abortion.

So there there's there's more of this.

You know, you're seeing a lot of this coming down the road.

You know, a lot of times Florida is leading in these things.

Other times, Florida is following what's happening elsewhere.

And we might see that in the future.

>>What do you think Karla?

>>And even without some of those restrictions in place, unfortunately, you know, doctors are worried about losing their licenses over things like this.

So they're going to err on the side of caution when it comes to some of those procedures.

And we've already seen that play out in other states where abortions have been denied based on the doctor's discretion and it's led to bad outcomes.

>>Could have a chilling effect and maybe doctors will look askance at people coming from other states for abortion when their home states do not allow it.

Well, you can find links to the House and Senate versions of the six week abortion ban bills on our website.

It's at wucf.org/newsnight.

Well, next tonight, changes coming down the pike for K through 12 education in Florida.

The governor this week signed into law universal school choice making Florida only the fourth state in the nation to take this step.

>>Florida in this first post COVID assessment rateed third and fourth in the country for fourth grade reading in fourth grade math.

Now, that was not true 25 years ago.

That was not true even ten years ago.

And so people have said, wait a minute, if you give parents a choice, if you let parents take scholarship and go to the school of their choice, somehow that's going to hurt education, performance.

And in Florida, we're proof positive that that's just the opposite.

>>Governor DeSantis speaking in Miami-Dade County this week.

Steve, let me start with you on this one.

This has been a big issue right over over the last few days.

Expanding school choice has really become a key priority for some Republican led states.

Florida's been praised by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation for that, for the steps that it's taken.

How did this become such an important issue, again, I guess, for Republican politics?

>>Yeah.

So in Republican politics, there is sort of a sense that they don't like their sense of like public schools or too much controlled, quote unquote, controlled by unions and things like that.

And they they think that, you know, putting money into, you know, other schools, you know, charter schools, private schools will allow.

Well, I think that they think they'll possibly break the unions and also will sort of, you know, sort of.

You know, a lot of public schools to have to sort of, you know, adjust to the new situation and make some more more of their liking.

>>Yeah.

Karla, what's the hit on universal school vouchers from critics?

I mean, why would they oppose I think spending about $8,000 per student or something to sort of give them that choice?

>>Well, for one thing, it's subsidizing private schools in a way.

You know, you're giving tax money to people who want to go to a private school when when our tax dollars really are meant to fund public education.

And if you think about the number of potentially students leaving public education to go to private schools with the help of these vouchers, you know, that can throw off the funding model for our public schools, for people who cannot afford to seek out these private or charter schools, you know, that they might otherwise not be able to do even with an $8,000 stipend.

And then that lowers the quality of education that they could be getting in public schools.

>>Yeah, and we actually heard that in that clip.

The governor dispute that, Steve.

I mean, there's a sort of an all boats rise idea that, you know, the state will do better if students are doing better and on all education will do better.

>>Yes.

You know, critics, including Democrats, would say that it's still just you know, it's a zero sum thing.

It's sucking money from public schools.

And like you said, it's just going to affect, you know, public schools in their quality and just sort of, you know, they would argue that, you know, the you know, the boats are all being, you know, lowered.

>>What about the cost of this?

I talked about this the other week on the program, but it's it's an open question.

Republicans say it would cost more if students stayed in public schools.

You know, the current funding model or charter schools.

Do we know if that's a fair assessment, given the independent estimates for how much this expansion would cost?

>>Yeah, that that's still unclear how that's that's going to work, really.

And like I said before, you know, Democrats are saying, you know, you know, if we're talking like apples to apples, apples to oranges, you know, you know, it's like you said, public.

They say public money, you know, should go towards public schools.

You know, private schools have been run very well, you know, for the last 100 plus years without, you know, a big influx of public money.

And it's, you know, sort of arguing over like what costs more, what, you know, is really not the point.

>>I guess it's a sort of part, isnt it Karla, of the broader discussion about parental choice in Florida.

>>And I also think it's important to mention that, you know, parents of students with exceptional needs were really nervous about this when it was first announced because, you know, it changes kind of the structure of some of their programs that were afforded to them to get their students in the schools that suit them best.

And so I think time will really be the tell here to see how that affects those families.

But I know that they're watching it very closely and very nervous about it.

>>Very interesting points.

And we'll be watching it closely as well.

Just a reminder that you can join this conversation on social media.

We're at WUCFTV on Facebook, Twitter, and also on Instagram.

Meanwhile, the legislature and the governor continue to focus on cultural issues in education as well.

One bill would make it easier for parents to object to books and instructional materials, require school district selected materials to be approved by the State Department of Education and restrict instruction on human sexuality, STDs and other topics, including menstrual cycles to grades six through 12 only.

Karla, let me come to you on this one.

This is a controversial bill.

It's gotten a lot of pushback right in the legislature.

We've heard that over the over recent weeks.

What are the concerns as and why the supporters say it's needed?

>>You know, the idea that every piece of instructional material would have to be approved all the way up to the state level, I think, is an idea that's hard to even just wrap your minds around because you think of any any sort of lesson in any discussion that happens in the classroom that is spurred naturally from those lessons.

I think that's one concern.

The limits on human sexuality is frustrating to some parents because they can already opt their students out of those conversations in Florida.

So the idea that you would need to restrict it even more, I think it's just kind of addressing a problem that many people don't think actually exists.

You know, supportive Supporters of this, though, say that it should really be up to the parents to be educating their kids on these types of issues.

And it just goes back to, as Steve mentioned, you know, the school choice, parental choice for parents.

>>Parental choice, sort of such a central theme of of of Governor Desantis's agenda.

Steve, I mean, this kind of bills, doesn't it, on a volley of legislation on what teachers can and cannot bring in into Florida classrooms.

I mean, there's an effort this session to expand the parental rights and education law, HB 5057, that's what critics call Don't Say Gay to charter schools and additional grades.

You've written about that expansion.

>>Yeah.

Essentially, you know, critics are called the previous bill.

Don't Say Gay.

You know, some of these bills are being called Don't Say They, essentially would prevent teachers from, you know, asking people what their preferred students, what the preferred pronouns are, or even if someone says what the preferred pronouns are, they they can't they can't follow that.

Yeah.

Just essentially a lot of these bills and there's just a bunch of them really just there's a bunch of they have like long just stretches of like, you know, defining what gender is like.

Gender is like what you were born as.

And it's like, you know, purely for procreative reasons and all that, all that sort of stuff.

It's just very detailed in terms of just like, you know, you are what you are at birth and there's nothing you can do about it.

Though there are sections that specifically do allow, especially in Randi Fine's bill.

>>The Brevard state rep. >>Brevard state rep, the sections that specifically allow for, you know, you know, surgery on infants born intersex or something like that.

So that's if you're born with, you know, intersex characteristics, you know, then surgery and like, you know, things like that, that's perfectly allowed going forward.

But otherwise it's just, you know, straight on, you know, you are what you are at birth.

>>Okay.

And the Desantis administration wants to go further in terms of the grades that this would apply to without the legislature.

How would it do that?

>>Well, when the Dont Say Gay was passed last year, a lot of people said, hey, this is sort of very vague.

And it also allows, you know, what happens in grades, you know, up to grade 12 to be at this sort of like the mercy of the Department of Education.

And the Department of Education is has looked and said, oh, we're going to clarify this.

They're going to clarify the confusion that was originally written to the bill and say that this is going to be, you know, extended now through grade 12.

So you're not going to have discussions about, you know, human sexuality in grade 12, which seems like, you know, well beyond, you know, when, you know, students know very much about human sexuality.

>>Yeah.

What about how this all boils down for that for the local school districts, Karla?

I mean, Channel 9 was covering Orange County, our largest school district in certainly in central Florida, one of the biggest in the nation.

They were discussing this week about how they were going to navigate a lot of these changes.

What is the school board telling teachers?

>>You know, they're working on a system that would allow teachers to sort of double check their lesson plans, you know, to make sure that they are not violating any of these rules ahead of time, working on creating really clear definitions to avoid some of the embarrassing moments that we have seen in other parts of the state where, you know, a principal was forced to resign over a lesson plan that included a statue of David to make sure that, you know, the definition of what's appropriate and what's not appropriate is clear to these teachers.

And board members would also have to follow the same rules.

So, you know that there has been some back and forth on the board about what should be allowed in the district and what sort of lesson plans should be allowed.

So they would have to follow the same rules as as any parent that wants to challenge anything in the district.

>>Of course, the irony about Michelangelo's David is that this was a classical school in Tallahassee where this controversy took place.

I mean, Steve, just finally, I mean, is Florida offering a blueprint, do you think, for other states, particularly Republican controlled states, in some of these educational reforms?

Do you reckon.

>>Oh yeah, Dont Say Gay has been copied like in states around the country.

And we're probably going to see more of that.

Florida has been at the forefront of this.

And, you know, states, you know, that you would think would have been on the forefront of this like, you know, more, you know, very conservative states, you know, southern states that are following, you know, Florida's lead.

>>Yeah, well, it's an interesting time.

Florida has been sort of a leader on education issues for for many years and continues to be So.

Now, reminder, you can find much more on our website, including my full length interview with Chabeli Carrazana from the 19th.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight but that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Steven Lemongello politics reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, Karla Ray WFTV, channel 9 investigative reporter.

Thank you so much for coming in, guys.

Really appreciate it.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, for all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.