All Eyes On Florida

FL's Supreme Court is hearing arguments on a pro-choice ballot measure today

This is a special edition/addition to the 2.7.24 issue of Abortion, Every Day. Keep an eye on your inbox for the regular daily report.

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The Florida Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the language of a pro-choice ballot measure today, in a case that could determine abortion access for the entire Southeast region.

As you know by now, Floridians Protecting Freedom collected enough signatures to get abortion in front of voters this November, and the numbers look really positive: A recent poll showed that 62% of voters support the measure, including a majority of Republicans. (Florida requires 60% of the vote to pass a constitutional amendment.)

But Republicans don’t care what voters want. And as has been the case in every other state considering a pro-choice measure, the Florida GOP is doing anything they can to stop the amendment from getting on the ballot. That’s included trying to raise the standards on ballot measures to require 66.67% of the vote, and—as we see today—attacking the language of the proposed amendment.

Back in October, Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody petitioned the state Supreme Court to reject the measure based on its ‘viability’ standard—claiming that the language was deliberately misleading:

“The ballot summary here is part of a…design to lay ticking time bombs that will enable abortion proponents later to argue that the amendment has a much broader meaning than voters would ever have thought.”

It’s a smart move, because ‘viability’ standards have caused controversy within the pro-choice movement: Some activists worry that proposing measures without viability language leaves them open to conservative attacks about abortion ‘up until birth’, others oppose incremental change and point out that Republicans make that claim regardless of the language we use or the policies we propose. (You know where I stand.)

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For more on ‘viability’ check out Erika Christensen’s guest column:

Guest Column: The Danger of Abortion 'Compromise'

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As I wrote in October, Moody is using the nebulous definition of ‘viability’ to cast doubt on the amendment, and to pressure the Florida Supreme Court to reject the measure. (I’ll be watching today to see if Moody argues anything else noteworthy.)

The worry among abortion rights activists is that Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed five of the seven justices, and that one of the judges has a major conflict of interest: Justice Charles Canady is married to State Rep. Jennifer Canady, who co-sponsored the state’s 6-week ban. Former Chief Justice Barbara Pariente even called for his recusal.

There’s more: in 2022, Chief Justice Carlos Muniz gave an anti-abortion group a private tour of the courthouse, and an anonymous court employee said, “I was told all the people [on the tour] are members of the anti-abortion group who came to see the place where abortion would soon be abolished in Florida.”

So the concern is definitely warranted.

And remember, without abortion rights protections in the state constitution, Republicans may be able to enact a 6-week abortion ban that was signed into law last April. (A ban that voters decidedly do not want: 75% oppose the law, including 60% of Republicans.)

A refresher: Right now, Florida has a 15-week abortion ban that’s being challenged before the state Supreme Court. In the past, the Court has ruled that abortion is protected under the privacy clause in the state constitution. But when the Court heard arguments in the challenge in September, questions from the justices indicated that they’re open to undoing decades of that precedent.

If the state Supreme Court rules that the 15-week ban is constitutional, it would automatically allow the stricter 6-week ban to take effect about a month later. Should that happen, millions of people will lose access to abortion: Florida has as many people in it as the populations of Greece and Sweden combined, and abortion clinics in the state have been serving a huge amount of out-of-state patients.

All of which means: today is important. I’ll be watching closely, and will update you with more in the regular daily report tonight.