The Florida Supreme Court on Monday upheld the state’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which means a subsequently passed six-week ban can soon take effect, before many women know they are pregnant, while also giving voters a chance to remove restrictions in November and restore abortion rights in most cases.
Quick Read
- The Florida Supreme Court upheld the state’s 15-week abortion ban, paving the way for a more restrictive six-week ban to soon become law.
- The ruling was made by a court majority appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, with five of the seven justices being his appointees.
- The enforcement of the 15-week ban, signed into law by DeSantis in 2022, has been ongoing during its legal challenge.
- The subsequent six-week ban, passed in 2023, was designed to activate a month after the 2022 law was confirmed by the court.
- Advocates for abortion rights, including Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, challenged the ban, citing Florida’s unique privacy clause as protecting abortion rights for over four decades.
- State attorneys argued that the 1980 privacy clause was intended for “informational privacy” rather than abortion rights.
- The overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court has led to abortion bans and restrictions in several Republican-led states, all facing legal challenges.
- Florida experienced a significant increase in abortions, becoming a critical provider for women from states with stricter laws, with over 7,700 out-of-state women obtaining abortions there in 2023.
- The new laws in Florida will impact access to abortion not just in the state but across the Southern United States, where many neighboring states have implemented or are enforcing strict abortion bans.
The Associated Press has the story:
Florida SCOUT upholds state’s 15-week ban on abortion, paving way for 6-week ban
Newslooks- TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) —
The Florida Supreme Court on Monday upheld the state’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which means a subsequently passed six-week ban can soon take effect, before many women know they are pregnant, while also giving voters a chance to remove restrictions in November and restore abortion rights in most cases.
The court that was reshaped by former presidential candidate and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ruled that the 15-week ban signed by DeSantis in 2022 can take effect. The ban has been enforced while it was being challenged in court. A six-week ban passed in the 2023 legislative session was written so that it would not take effect until a month after the 2022 law was upheld.
Most abortions are obtained before the 15-week mark, so the current ban does not affect most people seeking abortion. But a six-week ban would likely have a major impact on women seeking abortions in Florida and throughout the South.
DeSantis appointed five of the court’s seven justices.
The lawsuit was brought by Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and others. They argued the Florida Constitution’s unique privacy clause for more than 40 years has explicitly protected a right to abortion in the state and should remain in force.
Lawyers for the state, however, said when the privacy clause was adopted by voter referendum in 1980, few people understood it would cover abortion. They told the justices the clause was mainly meant to cover “informational privacy” such as personal records and not abortion.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, most Republican-controlled states have adopted bans or restrictions on abortions. Every ban has faced a court challenge.
A survey of abortion providers conducted for the Society of Family Planning, which advocates for abortion access, found that Florida had the second-largest surge in the total number of abortions provided since Roe v. Wade was overturned. The state’s data shows that more than 7,700 women from other states received abortions in Florida in 2023.
The neighboring or nearby states of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi are among the 14 states with bans now in place on abortion in stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions. Georgia and South Carolina bar it once cardiac activity can be detected, which is generally considered to be around six weeks into pregnancy and often before women realize they’re pregnant.
