Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is warning that abortion proponents in the state are preparing to smuggle a radical ballot measure across the finish line in November.
“Because all of the Southeast has various forms of pro-life legislation, Florida would become the abortion mecca of this region—and maybe one of the abortion meccas of the entire world, because it would be one of the most liberal abortion regimes anywhere in the world,” the Republican governor warned during a Zoom call Thursday with hundreds of pastors and faith leaders.
“This amendment is written maybe more liberal than New York and California, but you would basically have a cottage industry, where people would be coming into Florida for this purpose,” DeSantis added. “And look, we’re a tourism state, but we want to be family-friendly tourism, not abortion tourism.”
The Republican governor urged faith leaders to help their congregations understand the pivotal importance of combating Amendment 4, “The Right to Abortion Initiative.” Floridians will be able to vote on the measure on Election Day, Nov. 5.
Amendment 4 would establish a “constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability,” which means before the baby is able to survive outside the womb. DeSantis argues that the phrasing of the amendment is crafted in such a way as to confuse pro-life voters about what they are dealing with.
“The way they wrote the summary, there are people that are pro-life that poll in favor of this because they think it’s a pro-life amendment,” the governor said. “So, it needs to be very clear to every voter exactly what direction this amendment is going.”
Since the May 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, abortion advocates have taken a new and very effective strategy—crafting ballot measures, even in red states, that enshrine a right to abortion into a state’s constitution, thereby circumventing pro-life laws and lawmakers.
Michigan voters legalized abortion up until birth with similarly vague language in a November 2022 ballot initiative. Michigan’s Proposal 3 prohibits laws against abortion if a “health care professional” deemed it to be “medically needed to protect a patient’s life or physical or mental health.”
According to KFF’s ballot tracker, up to 11 states may have abortion measures on their ballots in 2024. Such ballot measure have received heavy funding and support from leftist activist groups, such as the ACLU and even from celebrities such as singer John Legend and former President Barack Obama.
Lawmakers on the right have largely shown themselves to be hesitant to seek to defeat the ballot initiatives.
But DeSantis indicated he won’t be so reluctant. The governor spent a good bit of Thursday’s Zoom call informing pastors on what the radical amendment will do and why Floridians must oppose it.
“It completely eliminates not just the Heartbeat Protection Act, but also the 15-week protections, and even eliminates parental consent for minors with respect to abortion,” he said, referring to two pieces of legislation he has previously signed.
“That’s something that is in our statutes. That’s very common sense. This amendment would eliminate that, and abortion would be the one thing that a minor could go behind their parents’ back and do without parental consent … so it does eliminate an important parental right.”
He continued: “It guarantees abortion all the way to the moment of birth. And it’s written in a way to try to massage that. But basically, if a ‘health care provider’ says that there should be an abortion, then you can do it. It doesn’t even require a physician! So a chiropractor could say [it], and then you could go.”
The governor also specifically addressed activists’ claims that late-term abortions do not take place.
“Some people would say, ‘Why would somebody do a late-term abortion?’” he said. “A lot of voters just don’t think it ever happens. And while it is rare, it’s roughly about 2%. The vast, vast majority of late-term abortions are purely elective.”
“Why?” the governor asked. “Well, look, people make money off of this, situations where the father may be pressuring a woman to do this, but that does happen in this country, and it’s not an insignificant number when you look at how that happens. So, that would be green-lighted in the state of Florida.”
DeSantis stressed that “anyone who has even an inkling of pro-life beliefs” should understand that Florida’s ballot amendment is “really, really bad.”
“It would be in the state’s constitution, which means you can elect pro-life legislators, you can elect somebody to be pro-life in the governor, and it’s not going to matter, because they’re not going to be able to legislate around this amendment to the state’s constitution,” he explained.