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Several groups have filed to get a proposed pro-abortion amendment on the 2024 ballot to amend the Florida Constitution. The groups include the ACLU along with Planned Parenthood, Florida Rising, and Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida.

The proposed amendment, “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,” must have at least 891,523 valid petition signatures filed with the state by February 1, 2024. The Florida Supreme Court must also approve that the proposed ballot amendment complies with the single subject rule and is not confusing.

The summary of the amendment reads: “Would provide that every individual has a right to reproductive freedom to make and conduct all pregnancy related decisions including childbirth, fertilization, sterilization, contraception, and termination of a pregnancy before fetal viability. Would prohibit the state or other entities from interfering with an individual or assisting entities from exercising this right. Would allow the state to regulate abortion care after fetal viability provided it does not endanger the life or health of the pregnant person.”

The full text of the proposed amendment reads:

a) “Every individual has a right to reproductive autonomy and freedom to make and execute all decisions involving pregnancy, including but not limited to childbirth, fertilization, sterilization, contraception, and termination of a pregnancy before the point of fetal viability.

b) The State, or any subdivision of the state, shall not prohibit, penalize, burden, harass, discriminate against, or in any other way interfere with an individual in their exercise of this right, or any other individual or entity that assists an individual in the exercise of this right, unless justified by a compelling state interest that is to be achieved by the least restrictive means.

c) No other individual, firm, corporation, institution, or entity may prohibit, penalize, harass, discriminate against, or in any other way interfere with an individual in their exercise or this right, or any other individual or entity that assists an individual with the exercise of this right, under any circumstances.

d) The State may prohibit and regulate abortion care after the point of fetal viability provided that no abortions are prohibited that, in the professional judgement of an attending medical professional, are medically necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person.

e) 1) For the purposes of this section, “fetal viability” shall be defined as the point in pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of an attending medical professional and based on the particular facts of the case, there is a significant likelihood of the fetus surviving outside of the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.

2) For the purposes of this section, a state interest is “compelling” only if it is for the limited purpose of

protecting the health of an individual seeking care, consistent with accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine and does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.

f) This section shall be self-executing.”

On April 13, Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law SB 300, known as the “Heartbeat Protection Act,” which protects unborn children in Florida beyond six weeks of pregnancy. The Florida House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted 70-40 in favor of the bill and the Florida Senate passed it on April 3 in a 26-13 vote.

The “Heartbeat Protection Act” will take effect 30 days after the Florida Supreme Court either holds that the right to privacy enshrined in Article I, Section 23 of the State Constitution does not include a right to abortion; upholds the 15-week abortion ban signed into law by DeSantis in April 2022; or if the Court overturns the state abortion case precedent in the In re T.W. decision.

Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief to the Florida Supreme Court on behalf of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Fiona Jackson Center for Pregnancy, and Issues4life Foundation, in defense of  Florida’s 15-week abortion ban since the Florida Constitution affirms “the right to enjoy and defend life” regardless of “race, religion, national origin, or physical disability.”

In addition, Liberty Counsel Action filed an amicus brief to the Florida Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, et al., v. State of Florida, et al., requesting that the In re T.W. decision issued by an activist court in 1989 be overturned and the original intent of Article I, Section 23 be restored so as not to recognize a right to kill preborn children by abortion. Before the Florida Supreme Court is a 15-week abortion ban passed by the legislature in 2022. Like the 15-week abortion ban that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulted in the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Florida case could follow a similar result.

Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Pro-abortion groups want to continue human genocide in Florida. Enough blood has been shed in Florida.”

Author: Liberty Counsel

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