Abortion rights advocates march and rally in support of the Yes On 4 campaign in downtown Orlando, Florida, against the six-week ban on Nov. 5, when Florida voters will vote on whether to allow the right to an abortion in Florida, on Saturday, April 13, 2024. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel/TNS)

ORLANDO, Fla. — Amid criticism of Florida’s six-week abortion ban, state health regulators issued emergency rules Thursday clarifying what medical conditions qualify for exceptions under the new law.

The rules say that if a woman’s water breaks prematurely, inducing delivery is not defined as an abortion, nor is the treatment of an ectopic pregnancy or trophoblastic tumor, a rare growth that forms in the uterus.

Providers have been demanding clarity since the state’s 15-week ban in 2022, and calls for guidance increased in the days leading up to the six-week ban, which took effect Wednesday.

Chelsea Daniels, an abortion provider in South Florida, previously told the Orlando Sentinel that the exceptions in both laws are overly vague, leading medical professionals to deny women care out of an abundance of caution. Violators of the law could lose their medical licenses and face third-degree felony charges.

“These exceptions are incredibly difficult to decipher and define and to follow,” Daniels said last week. “Physicians and the lawyers advising us, we are afraid to make medical decisions that could put us in legal jeopardy, even if we understand that our medical decisions are based in the science.”

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, expressed limited gratitude for the emergency rule on social media early Thursday.

“Desantis is picking & choosing which life saving care he supports & which he doesn’t by deeming some care “not an abortion” even when procedure is the same. Glad for some clarity so lives can be saved but healthcare should never be politicized like this,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

There have been several instances since the 15-week ban’s passage where Florida women were turned away from hospitals after their water broke prematurely, with potentially life-threatening consequences.

Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood was cited in 2023 by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for refusing to provide an abortion for a woman whose water broke because she was past Florida’s 15-week limit.

Despite issuing the new rule, Agency for Health Care Administration supporters contended that the exceptions were already clear and accused abortion-right advocates of spreading “disinformation.”

The rules themselves include language that says they were published in response to a “deeply dishonest scare campaign and disinformation being perpetuated by the media, the Biden Administration, and advocacy groups to misrepresent the Heartbeat Protection Act and the State’s efforts to protect life, moms, and families.”

The six-week law offers exceptions for health, in part, if “two physicians certify in writing that, in reasonable medical judgment, the termination of the pregnancy is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life or avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman other than a psychological condition.”

One physician’s approval is enough if another is not available.

The law also offers exceptions for rape, human trafficking and incest up to 15 weeks of pregnancy but requires documentation such as a police report or a restraining order. It also has exceptions up to the third trimester for a “fatal fetal abnormality,” a nonclinical term defined as a condition where the baby will die at birth or immediately after.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the anti-abortion group Liberty Counsel, said the AHCA’s emergency order “doesn’t add anything new.”

“I think there has been a lot of fear-mongering and disinformation that goes beyond what the six-week law actually does. So this helps to bring some clarity to it,” Staver said.

The Biden Administration has argued that a federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, already requires hospitals to provide abortions when necessary for a woman’s health. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in April but has yet to rule whether that law applies.

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