The Florida Supreme Court issued two decisions on abortion today. Five of the seven judges were appointed by Governor DeSantis.
First, the Court ruled that the pro-abortion forces could have a referendum on the ballot in November. The referendum seeks to protect abortion rights in the state constitution. The referendum must be approved by 60% of those who vote. (In Ohio, a similar amendment was passed by 58% of voters.)
Second, the Court approved the state’s new ban on abortion by 15 weeks, which will be replaced at the end of 30 days by an even newer six-week ban, one of the strictest in the nation. Few women know they are pregnant at the six-week mark. It’s not until a woman has missed her menstrual period twice (eight weeks) that women suspect they may be pregnant.
Republican leaders are preparing to fight the referendum.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
given that there is not an independent judiciary in Florida, this would appear to be a certain faith in the party in power betting that it will be able to either win outright or suppress enough opposition votes to win.
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Or… it might be reflecting the reality that DeStalin’s stock value has declined precipitously in the wake of prez candidacy flop, plus he will be a lame duck in merely 2.5 yrs.
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Anti-choice Rep manipulators already trying to paint the soon-to-be-reality 6wk ban as, “but hey, not so bad– at least this one allows rape and incest exceptions!” My guess: the 6wk ban reality will make a thumbs-down referendum even more likely.
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Florida is second in the nation in percentage of the population having abortions. It’s an uneducated state, and where there is little education, there are a lot of young people having irresponsible sex. So, while the state gives lip service to being antiabortion, the reality is quite different. The referendum is quite likely to pass.
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Isn’t recreational weed also on the ballot in November?
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YES!!!! FINALLY!!!!
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That’s even more bad news for Trump. Lot of D-leaning people who otherwise might not show up to vote will be at the polls.
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YES!!!! Flor-uh-duh has a LOT of stoners!!!
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I hope the abortion vote will bring out more young people that may also decide to vote for Biden. We need “all hands on deck” in this election.
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Unfortunately, Florida’s voting policies do not make it easy for these reluctant, rare voters.
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That’s by design.
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In this deeply red state, this is a losing issue for Repugnicans. It’s important enough to overturn the governorship should the six-week thing pass.
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And Rick Scott is also endangered in his Senate re-election campaign by having abortion on the ballot
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Diane, how do I change the email account your posts for your posts? The one you have been using is compromised and I need to shut it down.
Thanks.
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Yvonne, subscribe again with your new email.
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Fantastic result. Voters have a chance to make their voices heard directly in November. And having this on the ballot in November is not good for Trump.
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Having an abortion referendum on the ballot is not good for Trump or for Senator Rick Scott, who had a very close race 6 years ago.
It’s unfortunate that the referendum requires a 60% majority. In what democracy does the Candace with 41% of the votes win vs the one with 59%?
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The Florida Supreme Court didn’t just do a “two-step” on abortion, they did a three-step.
First, the conservative Republican Supremes ruled 6-1 that the state constitution’s privacy protection(s) did NOT apply to abortion. They cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) decision that REJECTED Roe v. Wade’s finding that “the constitutional right to privacy was broad enough to protect an abortion choice made by a ‘woman and her responsible physician.’ “ And, in so doing, the conservative Republican Supremes REJECTED what a previous state Supreme Court had found in interpreting Florida’s 1980 voter-approved Privacy Clause that “few decisions are more personal and intimate, more properly private, or more basic to individual dignity and autonomy, than a woman’s decision … whether to end her pregnancy.”
The conservative majority complained that when voters approved the Privacy Clause, they did not understand it to apply to abortion, an absolutely astounding claim.
As Justice Jorge Labarga wrote in dissent,
“I lament that what the majority has done today supplants Florida voters’ understanding — then and now — that the right of privacy includes the right to an abortion. The majority concludes that the public understanding of the right of privacy did not encompass the right to an abortion. However, the dominance of Roe in the public discourse makes it inconceivable that in 1980, Florida voters did not associate abortion with the right of privacy.”
Second, the conservative Republican Supremes ruled 4-3 that a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights CAN be placed on the ballot in Florida in November. The per curiam ballot decision said this:
“We decline to adopt a standard that would effectively vest us with the power to bar an amendment from the ballot because of a supposed ambiguity in the text of the amendment.”
Republican governor Ron DeSantis and Republican Attorney General — who is a Trumper and a seditionist — were opposed to voters deciding the abortion issue. The Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion will need 60 percent of the vote to be passed.
Third, the conservative Florida Supremes hedged their bets. In oral arguments and in writing, several of the justices raised the issue of fetal personhood, questioning how an amendment protecting the right to an abortion would square with the state constitution’s guarantee that all “‘natural persons’ have a right to life and liberty.” The Chief Justice wrote that an abortion protection amendment “would constitutionalize restrictions on the people’s authority to use law to protect an entire class of human beings from private harm.”
Thus, the conservative Republican majority wrote, yes, voters CAN get to decide if they want to pass The Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion amendment, BUT it may well be in direct opposition to “personhood rights as applied to the unborn child.”
And guess who gets to decide THAT question?
As University of California-Davis law professor Mary Ziegler put it,
“They’re saying the constitution may still protect the fetus and unborn child, and that question is still alive.”
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