The Florida women who carry gunshot wound kits to abortion clinics

As Winona McMichael packs her bag for work each morning, she checks she has her phone, wallet and keys. Then she looks for her gunshot wound kit.

But she is not a soldier, police officer or even a paramedic, as one might expect. She is a volunteer at an abortion clinic in Orlando, Florida, helping escort patients inside for treatment.

'Things have gotten physical before,' 28-year-old McMichael, told the Daily Mail. 'We all carry those gunshot kits and we've had classes on how to pack bullet wounds.'

Worryingly, experts say the debate over abortion access is now so highly charged that safety measures like this are a necessity.

Across the US there have been 11 murders, 42 bombings and 531 assaults on patients, providers, and volunteers associated with abortion clinics since 1977, according to the latest data from the National Abortion Federation.

That violence is now sharply on the rise, according to their data, particularly for cases of assaults, bomb threats and stalking.

And, as America stands on the eve of one the most tightly contested elections in modern history, abortion has become even more of a trigger issue.

Recent polls have shown a stark gender divide between Republican and Democratic voters, with abortion being one of the key issues driving women to vote for Kamala Harris.

Former President Donald Trump has long boasted about his role in helping to overturn Roe v Wade in 2022, by filling the Supreme Court with conservative justices who then voted to end the constitutional right to an abortion.

In doing so, power over abortion access was handed back to individual states – and, in the deepest of Red states, extremely strict conditions were put in place almost immediately. Thirteen states now have total bans on abortion with very limited exceptions, and four have six-week bans.

But there is increasing evidence that people are revolting. A poll by the Pew Research Center in May found 63 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances.

Even Trump himself has indicated he would vote to overturn a six-week ban, telling the Mail in August: 'I think six weeks is a mistake.'

In Trump's home state of Florida – where abortion volunteer Winona McMichael's clinic is – Governor Ron DeSantis brought a six-week ban into effect on May 1, replacing the pre-existing 15-week ban that had been in place since 2022.

The move was met with instant outrage – not least because Florida had been one of the few remaining Southern states where women could access abortion care.

But now, the tide may well turn, as while Trump is almost certain to triumph in the state on November 5, Floridians also have the chance to pass a measure, Amendment 4, to overturn DeSantis's six-week ban.

Amendment 4 requires 60 percent of votes to pass, and the most recent poll by Florida Atlantic University suggests that – even in such a reliably-Republican state – public opinion is within touching distance of that figure.

When you read the horrifying stories of Floridians, you begin to understand why…

Deborah Dorbert, 33, was denied an abortion and had to carry her baby to term as she did not have the money to travel out of state, despite knowing he would either be stillborn or die within minutes of birth in 2022.

'We were overjoyed,' Deborah told the Mail. 'We were going to have a little boy.'

Then tragedy struck.

'At 23 weeks, we went in for a routine ultrasound and our doctor told us our baby did not have kidneys and that there was very little amniotic fluid,' Deborah said, 'it was our worst nightmare come true.'

The diagnosis meant that Deborah's baby would almost certainly be stillborn.

But because of the ban (then at 15 weeks), and a lack of clarity over what qualifies as a 'fatal fetal abnormality' as an exemption, Deborah's doctors told her their hands were tied, and they could not perform an abortion.

'I had no choice but to carry my pregnancy to term for 13 more weeks, knowing that my baby boy would die shortly thereafter,' she said.

When Deborah went into labor, she had to explain to her then-four-year-old son that despite the fact she was going to hospital, his baby brother wouldn't be coming home. '[It was] an unbearable type of heartbreak,' she said.

After giving birth, the horror deepened.

'I was handed my newborn baby already cold and blue,' Deborah said. 'I was forced to watch him suffocate, for 94 excruciating minutes, until he passed away.'

Another of the most emotive of the stories that has emerged in recent months is that of Caroline, a woman who shared her ordeal in an advert campaigning for the overturning of Florida's six-week ban.

Last month, DeSantis's administration tried to block TV stations from running the advert, but a judge overruled, saying: 'It's the First Amendment, stupid.'

Caroline – who is not sharing her surname – reveals how she became pregnant with her second child in 2022, before Florida's six-week ban went into effect in May 2024.

At 18 weeks pregnant, Caroline started suffering alarming symptoms.

'I wasn't able to speak, write, focus or read,' she told the Mail, 'it happened so fast, like over six days, I thought maybe I was having a stroke.'

Caroline went to the emergency room and doctors found a 'large mass' in her brain.

'After being in the Neuro ICU for two weeks, I was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, glioblastoma,' Caroline said. 'There is no cure for the cancer I have and they weren't sure how long I would live, especially with the [pregnancy induced] hormones.'

The doctors wanted her to start chemotherapy and radiation straight away, but Caroline couldn't do either while pregnant.

She was left with a terrible choice: try to carry her baby to term and risk dying in the process or soon after – or terminate her pregnancy and get treatment, to spend more time with her already two-year-old daughter.

'It was the hardest decision I have ever made, but I chose to end my pregnancy and begin to prepare for radiation the very next day,' she told the Mail. 'My abortion allowed me more time to be a mother to my daughter and a wife to my husband. I am grateful for the legal right to have made that decision.'

Two years later, with the more restrictive current ban in place, Caroline wouldn't have had the chance to make such a choice.

'Florida's ban does not even make exceptions in cases like mine and for me abortion care was medically necessary to save my life,' she said.

Now, women are finding themselves forced to leave the state to access essential care.

Since the six-week abortion ban was passed, Winona McMichael estimates 70 percent of the women that come and try to end their pregnancies at the Orlando clinic she volunteers at are turned away.

'It's really scary, because a majority of people that need to access this care are very young,' McMichael told the Mail, 'almost all the women we see are under 25.'

Often, they've traveled for hours to be there, taking time off work and finding childcare for their other children.

'We see patients that say that they slept on the side of the road or slept in their cars to be here,' McMichael said.

And when they are seen, only to find out they are too far along under Floridian law, many of them break down outside the clinic not knowing where to turn next.

'It's a very scared confusion of, 'I don't understand, I don't understand, why I can't access this care here?',' McMichael described.

Unable to help, McMichael and other volunteers say they give patients information and connect them to other clinics out of state and even in Puerto Rico, where they can travel for care.

'We will get them to Puerto Rico, and they will have their procedure done there. And then two weeks later, they can come back into the Orlando clinic for their follow up-appointment,' she said.

It's a last-ditch option and often comes at great cost.

The family of one woman, Megan Palmese, started a GoFundMe to cover the expenses of her travel out of state for abortion care in the midst of a medical emergency.

In early April this year, Megan was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy surgery the following month. A few weeks later she began feeling nauseous and discovered she was pregnant.

'An ultrasound revealed a life-threatening cesarean ectopic pregnancy [in which an embryo implants in the scar tissue from a previous C-section],' her family wrote on the GoFundMe, 'but due to certain legislation, she was unable to get the necessary care in Florida.'

It is unclear why doctors allegedly denied her care, but at least one physician who treated Palmese said he was at a loss over her predicament. 

'My understanding is I don't understand it,' Dr. Michael Leslie Nimaroff told the New York Times.

'As a health care provider for women, it's very hard for us to understand not being able to intervene for the mother's wellness and safety. It goes against what we're taught.'

Her family drove nearly 1,200 miles to New York, where Megan underwent a total hysterectomy. She was forced to take three months of work for travel, treatment and recovery.

'This journey has been emotionally and financially challenging, highlighting how difficult it can be for women to seek basic life-saving treatment,' her family wrote on the GoFundMe page.

But Megan was one of the lucky ones, able to pay her way to a safer state and receive the care she needed.

Spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union, Keisha Mulfort, told the Mail: 'When you have bans like [Florida's] that are one size fits all, you just put women in the position to wait until they bleed out, or wait until they begin to miscarry, or for other complications to start in order for them to get care. And that is not acceptable, not in the country that proclaims to be the greatest.