TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Vice President Kamala Harris blasted Florida’s proposed six-week abortion ban on Monday, calling it an “extreme” attack that will put the government in charge of health care decisions and effectively wipe out abortion access throughout the South.
The White House’s criticism foreshadows a clash over an issue that likely will be at the forefront of the 2024 presidential election.
Florida Republicans are considering banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy with limited exceptions. With the GOP holding supermajorities in the Legislature, the measure is likely to pass.
Such a ban would cut off abortion services for women throughout the South and prohibit the procedure “before many women even know they are pregnant,” Harris told reporters during a telephone news conference Monday.
“A six-week ban would function as a regional ban,” she said. “This issue is about women’s autonomy, their freedom to decide whether and when to have children. These laws also endanger women’s health, putting their lives in jeopardy.”
The six-week ban also sparked concerns from Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, who said he doesn’t think most Floridians want to further restrict abortion. He said most people would support an abortion ban at 15 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for rape and incest.
“That’s where the population is,” Scott told Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro last week. “Our state legislation ought to represent that.”
Florida has become a haven for abortion access with the procedure outlawed almost completely in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Georgia bans abortion at about six weeks.
Florida currently bans most abortions at 15 weeks of pregnancy under a law passed last year that’s being challenged in the state Supreme Court.
More than 82,000 abortions were performed in Florida in 2022, up 7,000 from 2020, according to statistics from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. Abortion providers attributed that increase in part to people coming from out of state to obtain an abortion.
Out-of-state residents getting abortions in Florida rose from about 4,000 in 2020 to about 6,700 in 2022, according to AHCA.
Sen. Erin Grall, the abortion legislation’s sponsor, said the ban will defend the “lives of the unborn” and make Florida a “beacon of hope for those who understand that life is sacred and must be protected.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely seen as a possible GOP presidential candidate, has said he welcomes “pro-life legislation” but hasn’t explicitly declared he would sign it.
Florida’s bill includes exceptions for rape and incest if the victim provides a police report, medical record, restraining order or court document as evidence of the crime.
It also includes exceptions for the life of the mother. Abortion would be allowed if a “fatal fetal abnormality” is detected, and the pregnancy has not progressed to the third trimester.
No exception for rape or incest will be made after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Abortion drugs could only be dispensed in person by a doctor under the latest proposal.
In January, Harris visited Tallahassee on the 50th anniversary of now-overturned Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision to call attention to efforts in Republican-led states to restrict abortion.
The Supreme Court reversed that decision guaranteeing a constitutional right to an abortion, putting the matter before state legislatures and prompting Florida’s neighboring states to enact their bans.
Florida’s proposed six-week abortion ban would take effect if the Florida Supreme Court rules that the state constitution’s privacy clause does not protect abortion. The state court has gotten more conservative in recent years with DeSantis appointing four of the seven justices.
Harris said she’s also concerned about efforts to force a major abortion pill off the shelves. A decision is expected soon in a lawsuit filed by an anti-abortion group challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s approval more than 20 years ago of mifepristone, a drug used by a growing number of patients to terminate their pregnancies.
“Think about what this means if extremists and politicians can override an FDA approval and remove any medication that they deem to be politically for some reason susceptible or deserving of attack. ... They could remove it from your medicine cabinet,” Harris said.
In addition to abortion, the White House is taking aim at bills directed at transgender children in Florida. One bill would bar transgender children from receiving hormones or undergoing surgeries to treat gender dysphoria.
President Joe Biden called Florida’s transgender bills “close to sinful” in an interview with Kal Penn for “The Daily Show” released Monday.
_____
