When Gov. Ron DeSantis slashed $3 billion from the state’s budget Thursday, one ill-fated item sounded familiar: Just as he did last year, DeSantis vetoed $2 million meant to help low-income people access long-acting birth control.
It was again Senate President Wilton Simpson, a Pasco County Republican, who included it in the $110 billion budget. Unlike last year, though, this veto landed amid a national reckoning on reproductive rights. It came weeks after a leaked Supreme Court opinion suggested the Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, and less than a month before Florida’s new 15-week abortion ban goes into effect.
Stephanie Fraim, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida — which includes the organization’s Tampa Bay-area clinics — questioned the rationale for the veto.
