After getting exposed, the pro-abortion group behind Florida’s deceptive and extreme Amendment 4 has now removed a link from its website that directed minors on how to get an abortion without having to tell their parents. This was apparently the result of the “Vote No on 4” campaign calling out the group in a September 4 news release.
Florida law requires parental consent before a minor can get an abortion, which can only occur before six weeks of pregnancy under the state’s “Heartbeat Protection Act.”
The “Yes on 4” campaign, run by Amendment 4’s sponsor Floridians Protecting Freedom, Inc., had included on its “information and resources” page a link to another pro-abortion group explaining how minors could get a judicial bypass for an abortion without parental consent. Florida is one of many states that allow a judicial bypass where judges can approve abortions for minors who want to avoid telling their parents. The page encourages minors to step out from under the state’s protections and advises them on how to get a no-cost lawyer to go before a judge and get permission for an abortion all while keeping parents in the dark.
The site belongs to Floridians for Reproductive Freedom, which also offers minors a chatbot named “Charley” that will help them “get or manage an abortion.” According to the Vote No on 4 campaign, a minor interacting with this “anonymous” chatbot will not be asked to verify their age and “can receive dubious and even dangerous advice on abortion.”
“The chatbot falsely claims that ‘abortion is medically safe no matter how far along someone is in their pregnancy,’” stated Vote No on 4 in its news release.
The chatbot is also quick to push legal boundaries. Within seconds of answering a few prompts from the chatbot, minors can get links on how to obtain unsafe abortion pills from out of state without ever being asked whether they are beyond Florida’s legal abortion limit.
“If a minor tells the chatbot that she has taken an abortion pill and is having serious medical symptoms like heavy bleeding, dizziness, or fainting, the chatbot advises her ‘You do not have to tell a doctor about taking abortion pills,’” stated Vote No on 4.
While the campaign in support of Amendment 4 deleted its link, the “extreme” nature and intentions behind this amendment are clear – to create in Florida a constitutional right to abortion up to birth at any time for any reason where there are even no safeguards for children.
Amendment 4 reads: “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.”
Amendment 4 would invalidate parental consent laws allowing minors unfettered access to abortion independently of their parents and without a judicial bypass. The sweeping measure would also invalidate all health and safety regulations protecting women and girls during abortion procedures and would remove the physician requirement that mandates only licensed physicians are to perform abortions.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver stated, “The sponsors of Amendment 4 were promoting dangerous and deceptive advice to minors regarding abortion. This extreme and misleading amendment would normalize the opportunity for minors to get abortions without parental consent and without any safeguards. Voters should understand that Amendment 4 will allow abortion up to and during birth when the baby can feel pain, remove all health and safety regulations, override parental consent laws, and require Floridians to fund abortions. Floridians and their children deserve better.”
