Why is a 6-week abortion ban nearly a total ban? It's about how we date a pregnancy
The medical community dates pregnancy to the first day of a woman's last period, even though fertilization generally happens two weeks after that. It's a long-standing practice but a confusing one.
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Nikola Stojadinovic/Getty Images
Florida's abortion ban after six-weeks gestation is in effect as of May 1. That means the time a person has to decide whether or not to have an abortion in Florida is – at most – two weeks. What? It has to do with how the medical community dates a pregnancy. Here's the deal:
So, a six-week limit on abortion is really a limit of four weeks after conception, and one or two weeks after a person learns they are pregnant. There are lots of variations in these biological norms from person-to-person and even from month-to-month. Florida's six-week ban has exceptions if the pregnant patient's life or a "major bodily function" is in jeopardy, in cases of rape, or if the fetus has a "fatal fetal abnormality."
The six-week limit on abortion is not common – it is in effect in South Carolina and Georgia, at the moment. Many more states have full abortion bans. The first six-week ban went into effect before Roe v. Wade was overturned in September 2021 in Texas. That was a ban on abortion after a "heartbeat" could be detected. Physicians have pointed out that there is no fetal heart at six-weeks gestation, but cardiac activity begins at that stage of development.
