Ballot effort launched to protect abortion rights in Florida

TALLAHASSEE – Florida abortion rights advocates launched a ballot effort aimed at asking voters next year to preserve access to the procedure in the face of tightening restrictions from Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature.

The proposed constitutional amendment would prohibit government interference prior to the viability of a fetus, said Kara Gross, legislative director with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, among the organizations promoting the initiative.

DeSantis recently enacted a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, one of the toughest standards in the nation.

“This ballot initiative will give Floridians a chance to ensure that our personal medical decisions are theirs and theirs alone to make,” Gross said Monday.

The proposed ballot language states: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

Fetal viability historically has been interpreted as the ability of a fetus to survive outside the uterus, put at about 24 weeks gestational age. This standard was in place for most of the previous 49 years in Florida and across the nation until the U.S. Supreme Court in last year’s Dobbs decision overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

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Since then, ballot proposals in six states were approved that established or upheld abortion rights. Like Florida, more states are considering measures for next year’s presidential election ballot.

DeSantis is expected soon to formally announce his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. So far, in most polls the Florida governor is trailing far behind former President Donald Trump, an already announced candidate.

While the Dobbs decision was pending last year, DeSantis signed a law banning most abortions in Florida after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Then, after Dobbs was handed down, emboldened Florida lawmakers this spring passed the six-week standard that will take effect if last year’s law survives a challenge now before the state Supreme Court.

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United under the banner Floridians Protecting Freedom, those seeking a ballot initiative face a tall political climb. Getting on the November 2024 ballot means almost 900,000 verified signatures must be gathered from Florida voters by Feb. 1, and the measure must clear review by the state Supreme Court for the constitutionality of its ballot language.

Signature-gathering can often take years, and tens of millions of dollars. But Floridians Protecting Freedom have an accelerated timetable.

Those promoting the initiative Monday say they are realistic about the hurdles they face.

But they say polls show Florida voters agree with the proposal’s goal. At least 60% of voters would have to approve the ballot measure for it to become law.

Six-week law not popular with voters, poll shows

A University of North Florida survey in March found that 75% of respondents opposed either somewhat or strongly a six-week law similar to what DeSantis enacted in a late-night signing ceremony in his office last month.

“Being denied a fundamental right to make decisions about pregnancy and health care, as is increasingly the case in Florida, means you are not free at all,” said Dr. Shelly Tien, an obstetrician/gynecologist who has provided abortion care at Planned Parenthood clinics across Florida.

Tien, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood organizations are among those who challenged Florida’s 15-week law, which a judge ruled unconstitutional since it conflicts with a 1989 state Supreme Court decision concluding that the state’s right-to-privacy protects abortion rights.

State wants to reinterpret privacy right

Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, is urging that justices reinterpret the privacy right, saying it does not include the right to abortion access. Attorneys for her office argued that the 1980, voter-approved constitutional privacy provision was not meant to apply to abortion.

“Whatever else it may contain, a right of privacy does not include a right to cause harm,” attorneys argued in a brief filed with justices, who are expected to rule this summer on the case.

But advocates say that if Floridians get a chance to address the issue on the ballot, the outcome will be clear.

“For more than a decade, Floridians have made it clear in polls and at the ballot box, that they don’t want politicians interfering with their personal medical decisions,” said Mone Holder, with Florida Rising, which advocates for Black and Hispanic Floridians.

John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @JKennedyReport

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Abortion in Florida: Push for constitutional amendment begins