Demonstrators on both sides of the abortion debate plan presences outside the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices consider whether to allow voters to decide a proposed state constitutional amendment establishing the right to the procedure.
Oral arguments are to begin that day at 9 a.m. before the seven-member Supreme Court, which must decide whether to approve the language describing the amendment that would appear on the November general election ballot.
At stake is more than the future of the proposed Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion — as huge as that would be to millions of Floridians.
The case also tests whether the state’s highest court larded with conservatives by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is prepared to accede to Attorney General Ashley Moody’s request that it frustrate the 996,512 Floridians who signed their names to petition forms seeking to decide the matter — and any other attempt to assert the public’s voice on matters of importance in the state in the future.
Floridians Protecting Freedom, the organization behind the initiative, plans to rally supporters outside the court building to signal to the justices that they are watching the court, and to hold a news conference following the arguments.
“Our supporters are passionate about giving voters a chance to get government out of our private lives. We’ve had nearly a million petitions verified and they want a chance to vote. They will be making their voices heard from now until November!” campaign director Lauren Brenzel said via email.
At least 100 anti-abortion protesters gathered in the Florida Capitol building on Nov. 22, 2022. Andrew Shirvell, in khaki pants and a white shirt, is the head of Florida Voice for the Unborn. Credit: Danielle J. Brown
Meanwhile, a group called Florida Voice for the Unborn plans its own rally and press conference on the court’s front steps timed to the hearing.
“The purpose of the rally is to encourage and pray for Attorney General Ashley Moody’s legal team and our conservative justices at the most crucial hour in this vital case,” Florida Voice said in a press release.
The keynote speaker will be Frank Pavone, removed by the Vatican from the Roman Catholic priesthood in December 2022 “for his outspoken pro-life advocacy,” as the Florida Voice press release put it — or for “blasphemous communications on social media” and “persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop,” according to a report by the Catholic News Agency.
In 2016, Pavone had placed an aborted fetus on a church altar “and posted a video of it on two social media sites,” according to an Associated Press report.
Also slotted to speak are state House Republican Webster Barnaby, representing part of Volusia County, and Kristen Wayne, regional coordinator for Students for Life. The press conference will feature attorney Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel and Republican state House members Mike Beltran, representing parts of Hillsborough and Manatee, and Randy Fine, representing part of Brevard County.
Abortion bans
In separate proceedings, the court is considering the fate of Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, having heard oral arguments on Sept. 8, 2023, in a challenge by Planned Parenthood affiliates and other providers, but has yet to issue its ruling. If the state high court overrules its own 1989 ruling protecting abortion access under the Florida Constitution’s privacy clause, a six-week ban passed in 2023 would take effect 30 days later.
The abortion amendment summary 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. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
The measure therefore would negate any abortion restriction that doesn’t meet those criteria.
Attorney General Moody, a Republican like DeSantis, has been trying to persuade the justices to deny ballot access, arguing in legal briefs along with anti-abortion organizations that the summary’s use of the word “viability” is ambiguous. However, since Roe v. Wade in 1973, the word has been widely accepted as meaning the point at which a fetus could survive outside the womb, between 23 and 24 weeks gestational age.
Another Moody argument is that the amendment would give health care providers the power to decide both what constitutes “viability” of a pregnancy and whether the “health” of the pregnant person justified a late-term abortion without disclosing that to voters.
Moody also has argued that the ballot language fails to disclose that federal law could intrude on abortion rights, including through the 2003 federal ban on “partial-birth abortions” (first filed in 1995 by Charles Canady, then a Florida congressman, now a justice of the Florida Supreme Court).
What the sponsors say
The sponsors replied that state law and Florida Supreme Court precedent reject such an expansive view of the court’s obligations when reviewing ballot language.
“In fact, the court has made clear, repeatedly, that the chief-purpose requirement does not require ‘an exhaustive explanation of the interpretation and future possible effects of the amendment,” a sponsor’s brief says.
As for the alleged ambiguous language, “The question is not whether the proposed constitutional language itself is free of any ambiguity, but whether the ballot title and summary affirmatively mislead voters as to the new constitutional language voters are asked to adopt,” the sponsor’s brief argues.
The sponsors also noted that the justices aren’t supposed to consider their own view of abortion — only whether the ballot language would mislead or confuse voters or logroll unrelated topics into a single amendment.
The post-Rallies planned at FL Supreme Court; justices ready to vet pivotal abortion-rights ballot language appeared first on Florida Phoenix.
This article originally appeared here and was republished with permission.
