A coalition of progressive and women's rights groups took to the sidewalk outside Republican State Rep. Dana Young's district office blocks off Tampa's posh Bayshore Boulevard Thursday morning to draw attention to her support for a bill they say will profoundly affect women not only in their ability to make their own healthcare choices, but their economic and social mobility.

In particular, they were calling out Young, Governor Rick Scott and other Republican state leaders for enacting H.B. 1411, which keeps state funding from any facility at which abortions are performed and requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital, which critics say is totally arbitrary and expressly aimed at limiting access to abortions.

“This bill is significantly going to reduce women's right to reproductive healthcare,” said Tammy Thomas-Miles, Tampa Director of Florida Institute for Reform and Empowerment, or FIRE. “The bill goes into effect July First and it interferes with a woman's choice, and we believe that's wrong.”

Lawmakers passed H.B. 1411 and other bills aimed at restricting abortion over the last legislative session, and last month Scott signed it into law.

Activist Christina Marie-Hernandez said the new laws, including the requirement of a 24-hour waiting period between a woman's initial visit to an abortion provider and the procedure itself, help create a climate for female autonomy that is on par with an that one observes during an episode of Mad Men while making an already difficult decision even more difficult.

“By implementing a mandatory 24-hour waiting period, Governor Scott and Representative Young undermine an already personal and often difficult process in the hearts and minds of women who have already made their self-determination," she said. “Most women who get an abortion contemplate it long before they get to the doctor's office.”

The controversy here, said Perla Hinojosa, a field director with Organize Now, goes well beyond women's access to healthy and safe abortions; it's also about women's ability to determine their own careers; after all, men who help create an unwanted pregnancy aren't saddled with the consequences; they can choose to be a father or not. Even so, she said, given the overarching economic impacts of children born to mothers who aren't ready or can't afford them affect everyone.

“At the end of the day, this is not only a women's issue," she said. "This is a community issue, and this is an issue that effects us economically. If you sit down and think about how much a child costs, and if you come from a low income family, how that might affect you, having a child.”

Even as they railed against the draconian laws, the activists did acknowledge that standing outside the offices of lawmakers who support such legislation isn't going to change the minds of people like Young, but it keeps alive a dialogue that has been going on for over four decades.

Hernandez said what helps keep her and other advocates optimistic are Florida's changing demographics, which may ultimately cause shifts in the type of candidates that get elected.

“The one thing we have seen and are continuing to see in our state is a changing development in the demographics of our electorate, which does include minorities, includes more women, Hispanics, African-Americans," she said. "And as that continues to evolve, it's really important that we continue to hold our electeds responsible for the actions they are taking and educating our communities on who us doing what, so when they go and make their decisions as to who they want to elect to represent them, that it's actually folks who are representing them, and not just standing along partisan lines.”

This article appears in Apr 28 – May 4, 2016.