Gov. Ron DeSantis continued attacking Florida’s abortion rights initiative Tuesday as he repeated previous claims that the political committee behind Amendment 4 is lying in commercials and warned that if voters approve the measure, abortions will be allowed right up to birth.
DeSantis, who is using his official capacity to fight against the ballot initiative in what critics say has been an unprecedented war using state resources, spoke at a Jacksonville rally for the second straight day with Florida Physicians Against Amendment 4, a group of doctors who oppose abortion rights.
He is traveling around the state with the group. The Governor joined them at a Miami rally Monday and is scheduled to go to a Winter Garden church on Tuesday afternoon.
“I think people should know the truth about what is at stake here,” DeSantis said. “Amendment 4, for the way it’s deceptively crafted, would effectively mean no limits.”
Florida lawmakers passed a six-week abortion ban that went into effect in May. Abortion rights advocates call it one of the most radical abortion bans in the country.
DeSantis urged voters to reject Amendment 4, which he says would swing the law in the opposite direction to another extreme.
“Regardless of your position on right to life, it’s just really, really bad policy, and it’s doubly bad to put that in a constitution, which you’re never going to be able to change,” DeSantis said Tuesday. “These things are permanent and override any statute.”
Amendment 4 seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and would limit government interference on abortion before viability — which is considered about 24 weeks — or to save the mother’s life.
The ballot question states, “This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
Reproductive freedom advocates say most women don’t know they are pregnant by six weeks. Victims of rape, incest and sex trafficking can get the medical procedure done within 15 weeks if they get the proper documentation, like a police report or medical report, to prove they are victims of a crime.
Advocates say some women who are miscarrying can’t get access to care, as doctors are scared to treat them.
DeSantis denied that Florida’s abortion ban is preventing women from getting help and argued the exceptions are straightforward.
“It would be ridiculous to have a law that did not provide physicians with the ability to treat people and save lives, and so Florida law is very clear,” DeSantis argued.
DeSantis said Amendment 4 “can green light an abortion up to the moment of birth. … That is just nuts.”
Amendment 4 leaders argue women carrying unborn children with fatal medical issues need access to abortions.
“The idea that any woman would electively seek an abortion late in her pregnancy is disgusting,” said Lauren Brenzel, a spokeswoman for the political committee that helped lead the effort to get abortion rights on the ballot, last month.
DeSantis has deployed a state agency’s website to campaign against Amendment 4 and his attorneys to threaten TV stations for playing pro-abortion rights commercials.
“The other thing this amendment would ultimately lead to is a hit against taxpayers,” DeSantis said. “If it passes, you are absolutely going to see that push right through the courts where they are going to demand that taxpayers fund these abortions.”
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