JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The United Spinal Association and three disability advocates have refiled a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles over the state’s Expectant Mother Parking Permits.
The lawsuit argues that these one-year permits, which allow expectant mothers to park in disabled parking spaces, violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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Kim Harrison, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, has been in a wheelchair since becoming paralyzed from a rare spinal cord disorder back in 2004. She says she relied on handicapped parking spaces in order to do everyday things like grocery shopping or going to church, and the state’s Expectant Mother Parking Permits make her life that much more difficult.
“If I park next to a car right now, I’m trapped, I can’t get in or out of my van,” Harrison said. “We just want fair and equal treatment, you know. None of us woke up and said, ‘Hey, today let’s go get a wheelchair and see how difficult my life can be.’ We have enough stress as it is.”
She got involved in the lawsuit after a new mother took one of two handicapped parking spaces at a St. Augustine pier.
“She goes, ‘Well, the doctor gave me because I was pregnant. I didn’t even ask for it, they just gave it to me,’ so they’re just giving them away,” Harrison said. “She had the baby already, so for seven more months, she gets to park in an accessible spot. In the meantime, people with wheelchairs and walkers are circling, looking for somewhere to park.”
According to the lawsuit, between June of 2025 and Jan. 31, FLHSMV issued more than 10,000 Expectant Mother Parking Permits.
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Claudia Center, the legal director of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and attorney for the plaintiffs, says taking away these spaces is unacceptable.
“It’s fine to have pregnancy parking, but you shouldn’t take it away; you shouldn’t use these like specially-designed disability spaces for pregnancy parking,” Center said. “You should have different spaces if you want to have pregnancy parking, and then also, if you do have a pregnancy that is causing you a mobility disability, you can already get a temporary disability placard.”
Center says the law was also passed without any input from the disability community, a move she calls “inappropriate.”
“Florida [already] doesn’t have enough accessible disability spaces to match the need,” Center said. “To have your state government give away these placards to people who, by definition, may not need them, that’s just making the problem a lot worse for people with disabilities, and also just very insulting. It’s not a matter of convenience, it’s a matter of equality, it’s a matter of safety,”
Harrison says she wants to make it clear that they’re not against pregnancy parking — they just want it to be written in the law correctly, and for the state to add additional spaces rather than taking them away.
“Our thing is, rewrite it, make the next spot after the accessible spots [an] expectant mother [spot], but you have an ordinance on it,” Harrison said. “[Then] If you don’t have the red placard that allows you to park there, you get a ticket, just like the other accessible parking spots.”
Harrison says she writes every Florida legislator every week and has yet to hear back from one.
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Tiffany Leahy, a mother of three boys, one of whom is autistic, says she agrees with the state’s decision to issue these parking permits.
“It’s sometimes hard getting far from the back of the parking lot up to the front with all of the kids, especially if you have a special needs child,” Leahy said. “I mean, not only are you carrying a kid, but you’ve got a purse, a diaper bag, you know, all the other things you need to take in and out of places with you.”
She says that mothers could benefit from these permits after pregnancy, too.
“While you’re pregnant, after you’re pregnant, because, like, I said, you have so much stuff to carry in and out,” Leahy said. “I think it would be very helpful to a young mother, or any mother, really.”
Leahy says she also agrees that there needs to be more parking spaces in total.
The Florida Department has issued a motion to dismiss the lawsuit for the second time. Center says they will oppose this and seek to amend the complaint by adding another plaintiff to the case.
We’ll keep you updated online and on air.
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