Florida & Abortion, Explained
Everything you need to know on the two state Supreme Court rulings
Yesterday, the Florida Supreme Court came down with two abortion rulings—one that allowed the enactment of a 6-week ban, another that approved a pro-choice measure for the November ballot. You can read the rulings here, and if you missed yesterday’s breakdown, you can get caught up here:
The 6-Week Ban
One of the things I’ve noticed since the news dropped is how many pundits are talking about how good this will be both for Florida Democrats and the Biden-Harris re-election campaign. And it’s true; the ruling is absolutely going to drive outraged voters to the polls in November. But I hope the excitement over how badly this is going to go for Republicans doesn’t overshadow the real, tangible human impact of this 6-week ban.
Because it’s really, really bad.
The ban, which will go into effect automatically within 30 days, is a public health disaster that will cause a tremendous amount of suffering—suffering that’s sure to hit the most marginalized groups the hardest.
People are going to be forced to carry pregnancies they don’t want. They’re going to have their health and lives endangered by this law. Women will have to empty their savings account to get out-of-state care. They’ll be tied to abusive partners or be unable to finish school.
It is going to be a nightmare. Please, let’s not forget that.
And as I mentioned yesterday, this impact isn’t only going to be felt in Florida, but across the South. Abortion providers in the state have had a massive increase in out-of-state abortion-seekers, and are seeing thousands more patients than in previous years. Florida actually saw the second-largest surge in abortion patients since Dobbs.
Given all that, Florida abortion clinics have been preparing for a ruling like this one. Michelle Quesada of Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida, for example, tells WUSF that the group has been strengthening their partnerships with providers in pro-choice states so they can refer people elsewhere:
“Making sure we have all the right people in place with scheduling, making sure we can fit as many patients in as possible. Education is the biggest part really, just making sure Floridians are educated about what’s about to happen come May 1.”
But here’s the thing: as incredible as patient navigators and abortion rights groups are, there’s only so much they can do. Patients denied care in Florida aren’t going to be able to simply hop to another state for an abortion. From Lauren Brenzel of Floridians Protecting Freedom:
“There is nowhere in the Southeast that can absorb Florida’s patient base. It’s simply not possible. That is simply an unmanageable volume of patients to try to offset to another state.”
Like I said: public health crisis.
Incredibly, Florida Republicans are trying to paint their ban as a middle ground. House Speaker Paul Renner, for example, said that because the ban has exceptions for rape, incest and fatal fetal abnormalities, “It is a compromise that addresses where I think many Floridians are.”
But remember, 'exceptions’ have been written deliberately to make them impossible to use. Florida’s rape exceptions, for example, mandates that victims provide “a copy of a restraining order, police report, medical record, or other court order or documentation providing evidence” that she’s been assaulted. (It’s common knowledge that rape victims overwhelmingly don’t report their assaults.)
Something else to remember about the 6-week ban that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention: the law doesn’t just ban abortion, but makes it illegal to help someone get an abortion. The law says anyone who “actively participates” in an abortion is guilty of a felony.
Democrats and pro-choice activists have pointed out that this language is broad enough to criminalize someone who drives a friend to a clinic, or lends them money for an abortion. (We’ve seem similarly broad language in travel bans.)
All of which is to say: this ban is dangerous, cruel, extremist—and will hurt millions of people.
Now, the horror of it all doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the politics of the ban. (I’m about to do that myself!) But I’m begging the media, pundits, writers, etc to remember that the most urgent and important piece of news in all this is the real life impact that this ban is going to have on people, families and communities.
To donate to Florida abortion funds, click here.
Amendment 4
The good news from yesterday’s rulings is that the state Supreme Court approved the language of Amendment 4, a pro-choice measure that protects abortion until ‘viability’. You can read it here.
Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody wanted the Court to reject the measure, arguing that the ‘viability’ language was deliberately misleading. This line of attack is something we’ve seen in pretty much every state considering an abortion rights amendment—claims that the language “tricks” voters.
It’s no secret why Florida Republicans are desperate to keep the amendment away from voters. Every time abortion has been on the ballot since Roe was overturned, abortion rights has won.
What makes this ballot measure fight different, though, is that the Florida amendment needs 60% of the vote to pass, as opposed to a simple majority. And now, anti-choice groups have had a chance in states like Ohio to test out their thus-far unsuccessful messaging. It’s possible that they’ve used that time to get better talking points. (Up until now, the conservative attacks on ballot measures have focused on language, claims about abortion ‘up until birth’, anti-trans scare tactics, and parental rights.)
In spite of the hurdles, the Florida abortion rights activists I’ve spoken to are feeling very good about November. Polling late last year showed that over 60% of Florida voters support the pro-choice amendment, including the majority of Republicans. And it’s safe to assume that support is going to increase in the wake of this massively unpopular 6-week ban.
In fact, Anna Hochkamner, Executive Director of Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition, tells me that their most recent polling shows over 70% support for Amendment 4. Which is tremendous.
“So many of us have been told that abortion is a dangerous word. Hogwash. People understand what’s at stake, and they know they don’t want the government messing around with their health.”
She’s not wrong. After all, it was just last week that a national poll showed that over 80% of Americans don’t want abortion to be regulated by the government at all. And despite the GOP’s attempts to make voters believe that abortion is something the country is split on, the truth is that Americans overwhelmingly want abortion to be legal—even in Florida.
As such, activists behind Amendment 4 say that their biggest hurdle isn’t voter support—but money. (These campaigns are extraordinarily expensive.) To support Amendment 4, donate here.
Florida & 2024
As I wrote yesterday, this is a fuck-around-and-find-out moment for the GOP.
In Florida, any Republican that’s on the ballot this November is going to have to answer for the 6-week ban, and explain their position to angry voters. After all, 75% of Floridians—including 60% of Republicans—oppose this bill. That’s not an easy hurdle.
And so far, Republican candidates have failed to come up with compelling messaging on abortion. For the most part, they’ve simply pivoted to saying that Democrats are ‘extreme’—which is becomes less credible with every new post-Roe horror story.
It’s the presidential election, though, that most politicos have their eyes on. We haven’t seen a Democratic presidential candidate win Florida since 2012, but Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, tells The Washington Post, “Florida’s back in play.” And President Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, wrote a memo arguing that thanks to abortion rights, Florida is “winnable.”
Biden’s campaign also wasted no time blaming Donald Trump for the Florida ban, telling reporters, “Because of Donald Trump, MAGA Republicans across this country are ripping away access to reproductive health care and inserting themselves into the most personal decisions women can make, from contraception to IVF.”
The campaign also released an ad today, attacking Trump on abortion rights and pointing out how the disgraced former president loves bragging about overturning Roe:
As you know, Trump has made some noise about supporting different federal abortion bans—most recently telling a radio host that “people are agreeing on” a 15-week ban. This comes after months of trying to have it both ways on the issue: Trump likes taking credit for the end of Roe, but also called Florida’s 6-week ban “terrible” when it first passed last year. (You know what my prediction is for what Trump is going to do.)
In response to yesterday’s news out of Florida, Trump said, “We’ll be making a statement next week on abortion.” Whether that’s a dodge or teasing a specific announcement is unclear.
The issue Trump has is that he can’t really keep up his claim that he’s going to find a middle-ground that Americans will be happy with. Because the only way to make voters happy on abortion is to make abortion legal.
The former president also has to keep the powerful anti-abortion lobby satisfied—which is becoming harder and harder to do. Anti-choice groups and activists have been really unhappy with how Republicans are running away from talking about abortion, and they have no interest in compromising on policy.
Despite their bullshit rhetoric about ‘reasonable restrictions’ and ‘consensus’, I don’t see anti-abortion groups being pleased with anything short of a federal ban. (After all, they’re even pissed off that the GOP is publicly backing off IVF restrictions!)
No matter what kind of game Trump tries to play, his strategy will only be as successful as the media allows it to be.
I’ve written many times before about how mainstream outlets do Trump’s job for him. When Trump went on “Meet the Press” in September, for example, he insisted that abortion providers “kill the baby after birth” seven different times. Yet NBC News’s takeaway—and headline—was that Trump wants to “bring the country together” on abortion.
We can’t let this happen again in the wake of Florida’s ban. Trump is going to be more desperate than ever to paint himself as a moderate; it’s vital that publications don’t fall for it.
Because as powerful as abortion rights is right now, it doesn’t mean Florida is in the bag at all. As Axios points out, “Republicans in Florida have a staggering lead in active voter registration and a robust political infrastructure.” Voters in the state also have a history of supporting progressive ballot measures while still voting for Republicans.
We have our work cut out for us.
I wonder if Florida's Republican legislators understand that having the amendment voted on in the GE will bring TONS of women to the polls? Especially after watching the same agonizing stories we saw coming out of Texas, but now coming from Florida? For the next 6 months.
Have they not been paying attention to the abortion votes we've seen the last 2 years??
It annoys me to no end that they call it a six week ban as if there’s any time in there to do anything. It’s a total ban. I don’t even want to know the number of tension headaches we all are going to have come November.