Abortion clinic’s bathroom walls become refuge for patients
As abortion laws have become stricter across the nation, especially in the South, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the bathroom walls of one women's healthcare clinic in Florida have become a refuge for women seeking care.
Around one year ago, patients at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Jacksonville started leaving messages of support for each other on the walls of the bathroom in the clinic's lobby, according to Morgan Daniel, the health center supervisor at Planned Parenthood Jacksonville.
"I couldn't tell you what the first message was," Daniel told "Good Morning America." "That space is private, and nobody can see them writing those messages, so that's part of why it is important, to be able to have that outlet in private."
Daniel said staff members noticed the messages after a few were left initially on the baby changing station in the bathroom.
Over time, more messages continued to be left to the point that they now increasingly cover the bathroom's walls, photographs show.
"All of the messages are empowering and focus on women supporting women and people being there to support each other," Daniel said. "The majority of the messages are saying encouraging words like, 'You've got this. You have people stand by you. You're safe. You're making the right decision for you and where you're at in your life.'"
As laws restricting abortion went into effect in states surrounding Florida, the messages also began to include women's stories of how far they traveled for abortion care.
"Traveled 5 hrs b/c of laws in my state," one message reads. "My body my choice. We matter."
The messages have taken on new meaning this week, according to Daniel, as a six-week ban on abortion went into effect in Florida.
Florida's law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy -- which went into effect Wednesday -- replaced the state's previous 15-week abortion ban, prohibiting the procedure before most women know they are pregnant.
In the South, abortion is now either banned or severely restricted in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
The closest state to Florida with no gestational limits on abortion is now Virginia, several hundred miles away.
The messages of support inside the Planned Parenthood clinic in Jacksonville are a reminder of the "access lost" due to the state's six-week ban, according to Michelle Quesada, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida.
"The wall now is more important than ever," Quesada told "GMA." "These are messages of real-life experiences, real moments where someone was within our health center to receive this care that they desperately needed and deserved, and now there are going to be many patients who come to us and see that and, unfortunately, they'll be beyond the gestational age to get the help they need in our center."
Both Quesada and Daniel said the clinic plans to keep the messages preserved so that women who come in for abortion care prior to six weeks, or for other care including birth control and guidance on traveling out of state for abortion care, can also feel supported.
"This time is extremely hard for patients," Daniel said. "We're still here to provide care for them, no matter what, and we are able to help them what they need."
Daniel noted that some patients have left messages on the wall thanking others, writing things like, "This was amazing to read."
"It's empowering for the patients," she said. "It's important for the patients to be able to have some sort of uplift and to be able to see, again, that they're not alone."
