A Florida health agency has quietly removed from its website an accessible way for people to search for licensed abortion clinics in the state, in a move that critics argue decreases transparency.
The healthcare provider finder installed on the state government website of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration historically offered a search function for licensed abortion clinics in Florida among other types of specialized healthcare providers, such as assisted living facilities, nursing homes and adult day care providers.
As of Wednesday, however, the search function for “abortion clinics” is no longer visible on the drop-down menu of the state search tool that lists types of healthcare providers that Floridians can search for. A glossary describing each healthcare provider also no longer lists abortion clinics, specifically.
Orlando Weekly reached out to AHCA to ask why this change was made, and when it occurred. It’s unclear, otherwise, when the state agency decided to remove this search option, although an archived version of the website available through the Wayback Machine shows the search function was visible as recently as last July.
Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando and former Planned Parenthood executive, told Orlando Weekly in a text message that she hadn’t received any notice of this change from AHCA, but said it was “not surprising.”
“Did not get any update or knowledge of this but intentionally withholding information from Floridians sounds about right,” she said.
The healthcare provider tool previously allowed visitors to search for actively licensed abortion clinics, clinics that had lost their license, and clinics that had closed. Now, abortion clinics — including Planned Parenthood clinics that offer abortion services — can be found on AHCA’s website through a Google search or by using the workaround of searching for a “clinical laboratory” using the same provider search tool.
Other information about abortion care in Florida, including state licensure requirements, the definitions of medical and surgical abortions, and monthly reports of the number of abortions performed in Florida, is still publicly accessible online.
Cheyenne Drews, the reproductive freedom program director of Progress Florida, nonetheless criticized the move to make a search function for abortion clinics less accessible.
“When someone is seeking reproductive health care, they deserve to do so without facing barriers or shame,” Drews told Orlando Weekly. “AHCA has a duty to operate from a place of transparency, not a narrow political ideology, and should not be suppressing information about abortion access in our state.”
The new norm
Florida, a state that until recently served as one of the last in the Southeast to legally offer abortion care after the first trimester, is now one of many Republican-controlled states that have severely limited abortion access since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 that overturned the guaranteed constitutional right to abortion.
In 2023, Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved a law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with narrow exceptions. It formally took effect May 1, 2024.
Since then, the number of abortion procedures provided in Florida annually has drastically declined, dropping by about half, while travel to the nearest states that have fewer restrictions on abortion access — namely, Virginia and New York — has increased, according to a tracker from the Guttmacher Institute.
At the same time, the national anti-abortion movement — buoyed by the Trump administration — has moved to expand its network of anti-abortion centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers, nationwide. Such facilities are often run by religious entities or churches, often do not have a medical license — allowing them to circumvent federal patient privacy laws — and explicitly exist to persuade pregnant people not to get an abortion.
Related Stories
Florida budget earmarks $29.5 million for anti-abortion center promoter — again
New anti-abortion pregnancy center opens in Kissimmee
These anti-abortion centers often use names that shroud their true intent — such as Orlando’s “Choices Women’s Clinic” — and locate themselves near actual licensed abortion clinics in order to confuse people. Operators also seek to lure people into their facilities with the promise of free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds and sexually transmitted infection testing, even if they don’t have a licensed medical professional on staff.
In Florida, these anti-abortion facilities outnumber actual abortion clinics more than three to one. Several dozen of these anti-abortion clinics are even funded by state taxpayer dollars. “In 2025, $30.3 million in taxpayer dollars were spent on unregulated pregnancy centers, which AHCA actively promotes, despite their lack of health and safety standards,” said Drews.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s term-limited from running for re-election this year, has rallied with staff members of these anti-abortion centers to promote his “pro-life” agenda in the past, and has weaponized taxpayer dollars to actively fight efforts to restore abortion rights in Florida.
Drews noted that Floridians for Reproductive Freedom, a coalition of groups that support abortion rights, has its own abortion provider search tool where people can find a list of licensed abortion clinics in the state.
“The cost of health care is already too much for many Florida families to afford; a taxpayer-funded state agency shouldn’t make it even harder to access,” she said.
Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Bluesky | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
