TIME: Florida Made It Difficult for a Man to Get an Abortion

Brett T. | 6:30 PM on May 20, 2024

We've been assured that it's bigoted not to put your pronouns in your X bio. As more governments make it a hate crime to "misgender" someone, TIME Magazine has gone all-in on transgenderism. Their piece is supposed to be about the supposedly draconian abortion laws in Florida that have been passed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. What we hadn't considered is how that legislation affected pregnant men. TIME tells us the story of Jasper and the decision he was forced to make because of Florida's cutoff for abortions.

If Jasper wanted an abortion, he had three weeks to make up his mind, raise the money, and schedule two appointments. He wished he’d had more time https://t.co/C8DLlghwMR
— TIME (@TIME) May 15, 2024

Shefali Luthra reports:

Jasper never considered he might be pregnant. Despite the nausea, the stomach pain, the fatigue, the possibility never crossed his mind. He was about six months into testosterone therapy, a form of gender-affirming care.
…
From the clinician’s reading of the ultrasound, it looked like Jasper was about 12 weeks pregnant, already through his first trimester. He’d heard about Roe v. Wade being recently overturned but hadn’t yet learned what that meant in his home state—that as of July 2022, while abortion in Florida would still be legal, the state would begin enforcing a law that prohibited the procedure for anyone past 15 weeks of pregnancy. When the nurse told him, it sank in how little time he had.
If Jasper wanted an abortion, he had three weeks to make up his mind, raise the money, and schedule not one but two appointments. That spring, the state courts had upheld a law mandating that anyone seeking an abortion needed to make two visits to the clinic, the first for counseling and the second—at least 24 hours later—for the procedure itself. He had no idea how long he might have to wait to be seen by a doctor. All he knew was he had to move quickly.
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Sobbing, he dialed Planned Parenthood. It took him five or six tries before someone answered. He told the woman on the phone he had just found out he was 12 weeks pregnant. Jasper had always figured he’d want an abortion if he were to get pregnant, but now, facing the decision, he was no longer sure what to do. He needed to know his options. How quickly could they see him?

Luthra, author of "Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America," makes it more than clear in the post that there should be no restrictions on abortion. After all, look at the stress the deadline put on Jasper. Of course, this was just another example of abortion as contraception: "Jasper had always figured he’d want an abortion if he were to get pregnant."

Why has it taken so long for the burden on pregnant men to get this sort of media attention?

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