Floridians are being asked this election season to vote on Amendment 4, which would add a sweeping right to abortion to the state’s constitution. They should say no.
The text of the amendment provides:
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 language is deliberately open-ended — ironically so, given how heavily the pro-abortion side has insisted that every pro-life law is too vague to ever be understood by mortal minds. It does not define “viability,” although it is plain enough that it would legalize abortions well after the six-week line drawn by the state legislature. By including a prohibition on “delay,” it may limit the state’s power even to require steps that ensure the mother’s informed consent before performing an abortion. It allows late-term abortions after viability on the basis of the mother’s “health,” apparently including mental health, and not limited to any serious or permanent harm to the mother. Rather than offer guidance, the amendment appears to conclusively delegate the scope of the exception to be “determined by the patient’s healthcare provider” — without even requiring that a doctor be the one to exercise this sweeping and apparently unreviewable discretion. Finally, by carving out only “notification” of parents, the amendment appears as if it may implicitly preclude any requirement of parental consent.
Problems of language are not insurmountable, although they suggest why this sort of policy should be made by legislatures that can offer detailed guidance and revise their work, rather than by ballot proposals that must be interpreted by judges. Even if the Florida courts succeed at filling in the details — a process that could require multiple test cases — the amendment would be a bad one.
Abortion, at or after six weeks, stops the beating heart of a biologically distinct human being, which is why the state has recently banned it at that point (with exceptions for pregnancies that threaten medical emergencies or arising from rape or incest). No amount of rhetoric can obscure that fact. Even during a time when popular opinion has swung against restrictive abortion laws, Amendment 4 would foreclose any possibility of legislative compromise on when abortions are permitted or what exceptions are allowed. Given the pro-life laws of Florida’s neighbors, it would also likely turn the state into a magnet for abortion tourism.
Thankfully, Florida law requires 60 percent of the vote in order to pass this amendment. Also thankfully, Ron DeSantis has thrown his considerable resources and political capital into the fight for life in Florida — at a time when many other Republican politicians are running headlong in the opposite direction. Floridians should follow their governor’s lead.