Abortion-rights advocates sees urgency in getting constitutional amendment on ballot

WEST PALM BEACH — Time is running out for abortion-rights advocates to gather enough signatures to get a proposed constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights on the November 2024 ballot.

Last weekend, U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel called on Floridians to sign the petition.

"We're here with a sense of urgency to make sure abortion is legal and accessible in the state of Florida," Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, said at the entrance to West Palm Beach City Hall, where she served as mayor before winning a seat in the U.S. House. "Our governor and Republican Legislature have decided that politicians, not women, should be in charge of whether they either grow or start a family."

In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that would ban abortions after six weeks. The new ban would go into effect if the state's current 15-week ban, implemented in 2022, survives legal challenges.

The new six-week ban would put the Sunshine State in a league with states throughout the South, where Republican-dominated state legislatures have approved sweeping restrictions to abortions. Many women, medical experts and others who support abortion rights say that, under the new laws in the South, women are prohibited from choosing to abort a pregnancy before they even know they are pregnant.

A group called Floridians Protecting Freedom launched the petition drive to put abortion protections in the state constitution.

Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, has led the ballot initiative, which she says has collected 690,000 of the roughly 891,000 signatures needed to get a proposed constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights on the 2024 ballot.

Floridians Protecting Freedom has until Feb. 1 to get the required signatures, but Goodhue said the group is on pace to meet its goal by the end of the year. "We know we're almost there," Goodhue said. "There's a lot of enthusiasm here. People are saying we don't want politicians deciding our futures."

Goodhue, wearing a T-shirt Saturday that read "Bans off Our Bodies" said the group planned to seek signatures that day at the West Palm Beach Greenmarket, and at a showing of the Beyoncé concert movie "Renaissance" in Fort Lauderdale, and at the Delray Beach GreenMarket.

Polling in the U.S. has consistently shown support for abortion rights. Gallup released a poll in July showing that 69% of Americans back the right to an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy. Despite longstanding support for abortion rights, many Republicans have fought to limit the procedure, arguing that it is immoral and likening it, in some cases, to murder.

The issue had been a political rallying point for Republicans in the decades since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which affirmed abortion rights. The GOP raised money off pledges to limit abortion rights and promised to appoint judges who would strike down Roe. The landscape changed significantly last year, when the Supreme Court, buttressed by Republican-appointed justices, did indeed strike down Roe, fulfilling GOP pledges — and enraging Americans who back abortion rights.

Some GOP-led states passed abortion restrictions that weren't possible under Roe, but the political energy on the topic has swung heavily toward Democrats, for whom re-establishing abortion rights is now a powerful pitch.

Months after the court struck down Roe, Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterm congressional elections, winning a majority in the U.S. House that was far smaller than expected and losing other races the party had expected to win.

Voters in politically conservative states such as Kansas, Ohio and Kentucky have moved to protect access to abortion, stunning some political observers. Now, Floridians Protecting Freedom wants to add Florida to that list.

Their push is likely to be aided by cases like the one in Texas, where, despite the state's near-total ban on abortion, a pregnant woman won a lower court ruling this week permitting her to abort a fetus her doctors have told her has a fatal anomaly.

On Monday, however, the Texas Supreme Court reversed that lower court’s ruling, though Cox’s attorneys hours earlier said she had left the state to have the procedure. The 31-year-old mother was not only told that her fetus had a fatal condition, but doctors also told her she could risk her future fertility if she doesn’t get the procedure.

The case has outraged abortion rights supporters, who see it as an example of politicians and judges forcing a woman to move forward with a nonviable pregnancy which they will determine if she can end. "It's just another example what these horrible laws are doing to the women of this country," Frankel said.

Laurel Worm, a 65-year-old Palm Beach resident, said she backs the push to add abortion protections to the Florida Constitution.

"Bodily autonomy is a basic human right," she said. "I'm appalled at where we are. I wouldn't live in Florida if I was of reproductive age."

Adriana Ragwah, a 24-year-old University of Florida graduate student who works for Planned Parenthood, said she, too, is backing the proposed amendment. She said that, in the native country of her parents, Trinidad and Tobago, women aren't empowered enough.

"Over there, men rule, men decide," Ragwah said.

But Ragwah said she wants that to change, particularly on issues that affect a woman's body.

"Men shouldn't be making these decisions," she said.

Wayne Washington is a journalist covering West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and race relations at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Frankel backs drive to add abortion protections to state constitution