An administrative law judge Thursday said a physician should face a $10,000 fine and a reprimand after she did not comply in 2022 with a law requiring 24-hour waiting periods before abortions can be performed.
▶ WATCH CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS
The case stems from 193 abortions that Candace Sue Cooley, an obstetrician and gynecologist, performed at the Center of Orlando for Women clinic during a two-week period immediately after the waiting-period law took effect.
Last month, the Florida Department of Health filed a document at the State Division of Administrative Hearings that called for Cooley’s license to be revoked to practice medicine. But in a 19-page recommended order Thursday, Administrative Law Judge James H. Peterson III said Cooley should pay a $10,000 fine and be reprimanded.
Peterson, in part, wrote that the clinic repeatedly sought information from the state Agency for Health Care Administration about when the waiting-period law would take effect after an April 2022 ruling by a Leon County circuit judge upheld it. Peterson said the agency did not provide information and that Cooley performed the abortions between April 26, 2022, and May 7, 2022 — after the law took effect April 25, 2022.