Florida's top court on Monday upheld a Republican-backed law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy - a decision that allows a stricter six-week ban to take effect - but also cleared the way for voters to decide whether to amend the state's constitution to establish a right to abortion.
The Florida Supreme Court's ruling upholding the existing ban - a victory for Governor Ron DeSantis and other Republicans - came in a challenge filed by abortion provider Planned Parenthood and others.
The court also rejected a bid by Ashley Moody, the Republican state attorney general, to keep the abortion rights constitutional amendment off the Nov. 5 ballot.
The constitutional amendment proposal's backers in January secured the required number of signatures to put it on the ballot. It would ban laws that "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."
Abortion is illegal after 15 weeks in Florida under a law signed by DeSantis in 2022, two months before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide.
DeSantis in April subsequently signed an even stricter ban passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature starting at six weeks of pregnancy. That measure included "trigger" language making the six-week ban take effect one month after the state Supreme Court affirmed the earlier 15-month ban. Six weeks is before many women know they are pregnant.
@ISIDEWITH2mos2MO
How do you reconcile the diverse opinions within a population about the morality and legality of abortion?
@9KY6LGG2mos2MO
I don't care at all what people think, because the moral law is not dependent on popular opinion.
@9L8QC2C2mos2MO
When a woman finds out she is pregnant that means she is carrying a baby, no matter how small. That means that something is growing inside that woman and that no matter who says what, when you abort the child you are ending a possible life. Emotionally, I can understand why someone would want to get rid of the baby of a rapist or from insect, but in the best interest of the lives and happiness of people who physically cannot have children, giving a child up for adoption would be more morally correct than abortion. Now, legally you cannot go to prison for an abortion, though it is a double sta… Read more
@P0l1cyChrisRepublican2mos2MO
I think fifteen weeks is more than enough time to limit abortions after. Heck, even at twelve weeks or well before that, the pregnancy should be more than well known to the mother/parents. Fifteen weeks is more than enough time to limit abortions within, with the exception of health or rape reasons.
@FerventPublicPolicyDemocrat2mos2MO
When things go wrong in pregnancy, it's usually later. In Texas, women are finding that they need to leave the state if the pregnancy will kill them. That's because the way the law is written, they can be sued for performing the abortion, and have to defend in court that it threatened the mother's life. Plus they have to pay their own lawyer's fees, again, because of the way the law is written.
@ISIDEWITH2mos2MO
@ISIDEWITH2mos2MO
@ISIDEWITH2mos2MO
Women who had not aborted in the past accounted for 58% of all abortions; women with one or two prior abortions accounted for 34%, and women with three or more prior abortions accounted for 8% (CDC).
Just under half of all abortions are "Return Visits", not a nice way to say it, but maybe after the first, both parties should be offered some form of semi permanent birth control?
@WittyRoadrunnerPatriot2mos2MO
The rest of the civilized world stops abortions at ~ 15 weeks. North Korea, China, Singapore, Denmark and Canada go longer. But in general, some blue states (California, New York, etc.) in the US have abortion laws that are more extreme than everyone else in the world with the exception of NK and China.
The radical position is legal abortion after the second trimester and the still atypical position is legal abortion in the latter half of the second trimester, like Virginia which allows it until the end of the 2nd trimester. This is extreme in the rest of the world and looked upon by most developed countries as barbaric.
@SugaryRightsWorking Family2mos2MO
It continues to dumbfound me that the same states who are so adamantly opposed to abortion are also opposed to meaningful assistance to the unintended or unwanted children who are born.
@DotterelAlexDemocrat2mos2MO
Every woman in every state has to vote for democrats in the November election. You can’t leave this important decision on women’s health up to white men. They like trump. They don’t care about women’s health, except to have control over them.
@MurkyC0nstitutionDemocrat2mos2MO
Women need this service badly. I hope they are able to ramp it up effectively. I am so appalled at what’s happening in this country to women’s reproductive rights. The latest court decision that determined an embryo is a child is simply outrageous. I guess some judges have decided they are not only theologians but doctors. They are making decision based on their religious beliefs on matters of which they have no knowledge, experience, or expertise.
@JudiciaryBuckGreen2mos2MO
And Florida just turned Blue or freaking Purple.
Women are not prisoners of the states they live in. Gambling is illegal in Utah, but a resident of Utah can go to Vegas and gamble legally. What's the difference?
The difference is that the rightwing wants to punish women any way they can.
This Florida ruling proves it-- they are after fetal personhood, which has far-reaching consequences, one of which is restricting many common forms of birth control.
Women will be walking dual-legal entities at *fertilization* if the GOP wins enough power in 2024. Or it can come via the Comstock Act.
These women mailing the pills are heroes.
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