On Tuesday – 11 days after Florida lawmakers passed a bill that requires a 24-hour waiting period for abortions – U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel urged support for a federal bill that would nullify the bill and other abortion regulations imposed by states.

While Florida lawmakers await Gov. Rick Scott’s signature on the state’s most recent abortion regulation, Frankel acknowledged that the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2015 has little chance of passing since support is split along party lines in the Republican led Congress. Efforts by the federal government to nullify laws and regulations passed by states would likely face legal challenges.

Still, “we have to be vigilant and persistent,” said Frankel, D-West Palm Beach.

Frankel opened her press conference at the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach saying she knew a friend who had a “backstreet abortion” before abortion became legal in 1973. There were complications, but her friend lived, Frankel said.

“What we have seen over the past 40 years, though, is obstacles placed by the federal government, by state after state and anti-choice legislators preventing women’s access to health-care they need and deserve,” Frankel said. Frankel and four other members of Congress introduced the Act on Jan. 21 – the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.

The act would require states to regulate abortion providers no differently than clinics and doctors that provide comparable services. Abortion specific regulations, such as Florida’s mandatory ultrasound law and recently passed waiting period law, would be illegal.

Florida requires women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion. A bill sponsored by Republican women in both chambers that would require women to personally meet with their doctors and give informed consent at least 24 hours before the abortion easily passed after extensive debate. The bills’ sponsors, Miami Sen. Anitere Flores and freshman Rep. Jennifer Sullivan from Eustis, argued that their bills protected women by giving them a 24-hour “reflection period” after discussing the procedure with their doctors.

Flores and Sullivan did not return calls for comment.

Opponents claimed that the bill forces women to make two trips to a clinic – at least a day apart – before the out-patient procedure. For women who live far from a clinic, the law means an overnight stay or another long drive, an obstacle that will create an additional hardship for poor women, said Mona Reis, founder and CEO of Presidential Women’s Center.

“I guess the Florida Legislature has decided it knows how to practice medicine better than the medical professionals trained to do so,” Reis said. “This mandatory bill is a threat to women’s health by unnecessarily delaying medical care.”