A pair of reproductive-related bills have been filed in the Florida Legislature in advance of the 2026 legislative session that starts Jan. 13.
One proposal, filed by Vero Beach Republican Sen. Erin Grall, would let parents file wrongful-death lawsuits for the death of a fetus at any stage of development.
As of this publication, Grall’s bill, SB 164 lacked a House companion.
SB 164 would not allow civil suits to be brought against medical personnel providing assistive reproductive technology, or procedures that involve the handling of human eggs, sperm, and embryos to help achieve pregnancy.
Neither could lawsuits be filed against a patient seeking reproductive assistance.
Grall filed similar legislation last year but that bill faced opposition from powerful Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, the former Senate president and chair of the Rules Committee. Passidomo took issue with the bill’s definition of “unborn child” as a “member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
The 2026 version of the bill uses the same definition of unborn child.
The second proposal, HB 6001, was filed by Boca Raton House Democrat Kelly Skidmore. That bill would eliminate from statute the “Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program,” established in 2005 as an initiative of then-Gov. Jeb Bush with the Legislature agreeing to appropriate $2 million for its operations.
In 2018, the Legislature codified the program into statute passing HB 41.
Now the program is housed in the Department of Health and legislators have agreed in the current year state budget to allocate $29.5 million to help it operate.
Skidmore argues that the program is no longer needed because of the state’s six-week abortion ban which, for the most part, bans terminations before many patients know they are pregnant.
“When we live in a state that has a six-week ban, how many crisis pregnancies do you think there are that we still need to fund $29.5 million for these centers?” Skidmore asked. “What crisis pregnancies are they helping with? There aren’t any, because there are no options for pregnant women. So, this is just false. All of it is false and a misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
HB 6001 doesn’t have a Senate companion because it is a “repealer bill.” Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez implemented a rule allowing representatives to file one repealer bill per session that does not count toward their seven-bill limit.
Skidmore said she took advantage of the opportunity.
“And what surprises me is that the emphasis on the new DOGE office has not raised this as a red flag of inappropriate spending of taxpayer dollars, particularly since there was a recent news story that the lawyer that represents many of these networks gave advice to not provide ultrasounds to pregnant women suspected of having an ectopic pregnancy because it was a high risk of being sued,” Skidmore said, referencing a Massachusetts lawsuit.
Meanwhile, the most recent available data show that during state fiscal year 2022-23, 21,372 women were provided 132,395 counseling services and 18,238 pregnancy tests were provided by the centers.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
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