A Florida ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution seems to have enough signatures to head to voters come November – if advocates can defeat Republican efforts to stop it.
As of Friday, totals from the Florida division of elections show that the campaign behind the measure, Floridians Protecting Freedom, had collected more than 910,00 verified signatures in support of the measure – roughly 20,000 more than the threshold needed to get it on the ballot in Florida. Those totals are unofficial and not finalized.
“Signatures came from everyone and everywhere, proving once again this is not a Republican or Democratic issue – it’s about freedom, healthcare, and safety,” the Florida state senate minority leader, Lauren Book, a Democrat, posted on X on Friday in celebration. “No woman and no doctor should fear imprisonment over abortion care. No woman or mother should face death because she can’t get proper care.”
Currently, Florida bans abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy, although the state supreme court is now deliberating over a case that could ultimately lead to a six-week abortion ban. The proposed amendment would amend the state constitution to declare that “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”, according to the ballot proposal’s summary.
Viability, or the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, is typically pegged at around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Under Roe v Wade, which the US supreme court overturned in 2022, states were broadly banned from prohibiting abortion before viability.
Florida is one of roughly a dozen states that may give voters a chance to decide on an abortion-related ballot measure in November. Several states have already voted on abortion rights referendums since the overturning of Roe; so far, in every state, abortion rights supporters have triumphed.
However, the Florida ballot measure’s path to voters is far from assured. Ashley Moody, the Republican attorney general, has filed a legal brief asking the Florida supreme court to block the amendment, arguing, in part, that the term “viability” can have too many meanings.
The ballot summary, Moody argued in court documents, is part of a “similar overall design to lay ticking time bombs that will enable abortion proponents later to argue that the amendment has a much broader meaning than voters would ever have thought”.
The Florida supreme court is set to hear arguments in the case in early February.
