Several left-wing groups are working together to put abortion through 24 weeks of pregnancy on the ballot in Florida next year in the hopes of undoing recent pro-life victories in the state, the Washington Post reported.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund and two of its Florida affiliates are leading the effort, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Florida and Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida are expected to officially announce the multimillion-dollar ballot initiative campaign in Tallahassee on Monday, according to the report.
If the initiative makes it onto the ballot and acquires the needed 60 percent approval from voters, it would undo Gov. Ron DeSantis’s passage of the Heartbeat Protection Act, which protects unborn babies from abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
FILE – A doctor uses a hand-held Doppler probe on a pregnant woman to measure the heartbeat of the fetus on Dec. 17, 2021, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File).
Sarah Standiford, national campaigns director for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, told Politico on Thursday the groups need to gather approximately 890,000 valid signatures from across the state by February 1.
“Floridians know what is best for their own bodies and their own lives,” Standiford added. “People are ready to vote for reproductive freedom and to take back power from lawmakers who have literally gone against the will of the people.”
According to proposed ballot language obtained by the Post, the initiative would not allow any law to “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.”
“The amendment would not change Florida rules that require notification of a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion,” the report notes.
Madison Tolchin leaves after having a health checkup at a Planned Parenthood clinic on April 14, 2017, in Wellington, Florida (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images).
SBA Pro-Life America’s state policy director Katie Daniel slammed the proposed amendment in a statement via email, calling the effort to “enshrine brutal late-term abortion.”
Daniel said:
The radical abortion lobby’s post-Dobbs playbook is clear. Groups like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood are flooding states around the country with millions of dollars to confuse and deceive the people, enshrine brutal late-term abortion on demand right up to birth with no protections for babies born alive, and destroy the right of parents to protect their daughters.
She went on to state, “Just look at their own words calling concerned parents ‘barriers.’ President Biden himself believes there is no such thing as someone else’s child, suggesting children belong collectively to the most extreme fringe voices on the Left.”
“Governor DeSantis consistently acts on the will of the people who overwhelmingly support parental consent before abortion for minors and who want to protect babies with beating hearts,” she continued. “It is crucial that voters understand what is at stake in the pro-abortion Left’s war on women, children and parents and we are committed to exposing their extreme agenda in Florida and nationwide.”
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