Florida’s six-week ban on most abortions took effect Wednesday, restricting the procedure after the point when proponents claim an unborn child’s heartbeat is detectible.
Vice President Kamala Harris marked the occasion with an appearance in Jacksonville, where she attacked former President Donald Trump for laying the groundwork for the law to take effect.
“Across our nation, we witnessed a full-on assault, state by state, on reproductive freedom, and understand who is to blame: former president Donald Trump did this,” Harris, 59, declared.
“Donald Trump hand-picked three members of the United States Supreme Court because he intended for them to overturn Roe[v Wade], and as he intended, they did.”
With Florida’s new ban in effect, some 50,000 babies could be saved annually, according to a projection by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
“This historic day marks an enormous victory in the human rights battle or our time. We celebrate the boys and girls who will live because of Florida’s #heartbeat law and the ways they will bless their families, friends, and communities,” the group posted on X.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 45, signed the ban — which allows exceptions to save the mother’s life — into law in April of last year, weeks before launching his unsuccessful 2024 presidential bid.
Ironically, Trump, 77, called DeSantis’ decision to sign that bill into law a “terrible mistake.”
Trump has also distanced himself from the anti-abortion movement, announcing last month that he would not back a national ban on the procedure, which some in his party had called for.
Florida’s Supreme Court allowed the six-week ban to take effect last month, but also greenlit a ballot measure to overturn the restrictions — which will require a 60% threshold to succeed.
The referendum has attracted attention from outside the Sunshine State, with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s Think Big America group funneling $500,000 to the pro-abortion side’s efforts
Democrats have attempted to use voter unease with abortion restrictions to try and regain a foothold in Florida, which has shifted toward the GOP over the past decade.
DeSantis has scoffed at the idea.
“I welcome Biden, Harris to spend a lot of money in Florida. Light up the airwaves. Light it on fire. We are fine with you doing that here. But I can confidently predict that you will see Republican victories,” he said at a presser Tuesday.
Prior to the enactment of Florida’s six-week ban, the Sunshine State had been the least restrictive of any of its neighbors, according to an analysis from Axios.
“Up until this point, Florida was perhaps the only state in the southeastern part of the country where a woman could seek reproductive health care,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) lamented Wednesday.
Critics of the law, such as Planned Parenthood, contend that it will ban abortion before many women even know that they are pregnant.
Florida has 30 of the 270 votes needed at the Electoral College to win the presidency. Its voters have backed a Democrat for president just three times since 1980 — Bill Clinton in 1996 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.