The Republican-controlled Florida Senate passed a bill on Thursday that bans abortion for pregnant women in Florida after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a measure that critics call the strictest abortion law in state history.

Though it’s mirrored after a 2018 abortion bill passed in Mississippi that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, the bill’s sponsor in the Senate, Ocala Republican Dennis Baxley, says other states could follow Florida in passing similar legislation.

“I think that this is the time and the place for Florida to really set an example for the whole country,” Baxley told reporters on Wednesday. “When we move on something, it frequently moves across a lot of states.”

A group of abortion rights activists gathered in Temple Terrace in front of a Planned Parenthood office on Wednesday to denounce the proposed legislation. The news conference began at 1:23 p.m., an allusion to Article 1, Section 23 of the Florida Constitution which includes the state's right to privacy clause. The Florida Supreme Court cited that provision in 1989 when it overturned the state’s parental-consent law for minors seeking abortions, and did so again in 2003.

Among those participating in the news conference was Kate Danehy-Samitz, who co-founded the group Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida last year in Manatee County. The group was formed in reaction to a move by County Commissioner James Satcher to explore legislation that would ban all abortions in Manatee County (that idea was quashed in December by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody).

“I saw what happened in Texas, and it took three weeks for Gov. Abbott to take a city abortion ban and take it to a statewide thing, and it really just comes down to the fact that abortion is health care,” she said about her motivation for forming the organization. “What we’re seeing here in Florida is a violation of our constitutional rights to bodily integrity.”

Danehy-Samitz co-founded the group with Sarah Parker, who she had met when a Black Lives Matter Manasota chapter grew active in 2020. They’ve already made four trips this legislative session to Tallahassee to rally against the proposal.

“This bill is nothing more than pandering and virtue signaling, under the guise of reducing infant mortality,” said Parker.

Danehy-Samitz says that there are already resources in place that can reduce abortion rates, including long-acting reversible contraception. Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson included $2 million in funding for that program last year, but the item was vetoed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Simpson backs it again this year, but the measure continues to be opposed by some social conservatives, and DeSantis told a reporter in Tampa on Wednesday that he wasn’t familiar at all with the issue when asked about it.

While abortion rights activists oppose the bill outright, they’re particularly outraged by the fact that the bill makes no exceptions for rape, incest or human trafficking.

Others agree. A University of North Florida survey of 685 registered Florida voters taken between Feb. 7 – Feb. 20 found that 57% opposed the bill either strongly or somewhat, with 34% supporting it. But when those surveyed were informed that there were no exceptions for rape or incest, opposition increased by five percentage points.

“Opposition to the abortion ban was five points higher with the ‘no exceptions’ version, but the fact that the responses weren’t terribly different speaks to the highly partisan and emotional nature of the abortion debate,” said Dr. Michael Binder, PORL faculty director and UNF professor of political science. “People tend to know where they stand on the issue and question wording doesn’t change very many peoples’ minds.”

Tampa Republican state Rep. Jackie Toledo is a co-sponsor of the bill.

“It’s not banning abortion. It’s saying that after 15 weeks when there is a baby inside the womb,” Toledo told Spectrum Bay News 9 last week. “That’s when I think that there’s enough time to make that decision. So we’re not banning abortions, we’re protecting a life.”

Now that the bill has been passed by the Senate, it will go to DeSantis desk. He's already indicated his support for the proposal.