More than 20 states are primed to ban abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade as expected, but whether Florida will fall in line with them isn’t clear.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has been uncharacteristically quiet on the issue, choosing to attack the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft decision instead of the potential consequences.
“Let’s see when you actually have [a ruling] rendered,” DeSantis said at an event in Clearwater last week. “Because, how they negotiate these things, I don’t think any of us really know.”
Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, said that if you had asked him before DeSantis’ initial statements, “I would have just said, ‘Well, I assume that the special session on insurance [set for May 23] will now be the special session on insurance and abortion.”
Now, with DeSantis’ seeming hesitation, “Florida is a little bit of a mystery to some of the big abortion rights groups. [They] don’t really know for sure.”
The Guttmacher Institute, a Washington, D.C-based reproductive rights group, lists 22 states as certain to ban abortion due either to “trigger” laws designed to go into effect immediately if Roe is overturned or pre-existing bans that would revert back to being law following such a ruling.
Florida was listed by the group as one of four states “likely” to ban abortion, along with Indiana, Montana and Nebraska.
“The Florida legislature is among those legislatures that have threatened to adopt abortion restrictions and bans,” said Elizabeth Nash, the group’s Interim Associate Director of State Issues. “And at the time we pulled together the chart there was already a Texas-style six-week abortion ban pre-filed.”
That “Texas-style” bill, which would have empowered people to sue anyone helping with abortions after six weeks, was replaced by a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks. The bill, which was at the outer edge at what was considered legally possible before the leaked draft, was patterned after the Mississippi law that led to the potential overturning of Roe by the court.
DeSantis signed it into law at a Kissimmee church last month, telling the audience, “We’re here today to protect life. We’re here today to defend those who can’t defend themselves.”
The Florida law allows abortions after 15 weeks only if a fetus is found to have a “fatal fetal abnormality,” which the bill describes as “a terminal condition that, in reasonable medical judgment ... is incompatible with life outside the womb and will result in death upon birth or imminently thereafter.”
Two doctors would have to certify that diagnosis. Abortion is currently legal up to the 24th week of pregnancy in Florida.
The law makes no exceptions for rape or incest.
DeSantis was joined in Kissimmee by State Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland. During the debate over a proposed Democratic amendment to the bill exempting women who have been raped, Stargel stressed that the bill didn’t outlaw abortion.
“I think a lot of people miss that this is not an all-out ban,” Stargel said in February, according to WUSF Public Media. “An individual has the ability to make a decision of what they want to do with their pregnancy prior to the 15 weeks. Many women who have been raped may have chosen to terminate their pregnancy prior to the 15 weeks.”
A February poll by the University of North Florida found that 57% of Floridians surveyed opposed the 15-week law, suggesting that DeSantis and Republicans have already gone against popular opinion to enact it. The same poll found that even more Floridians, 68%, agreed with the Roe ruling.
Normally, lawmakers would have to wait until the next full legislative session to debate abortion laws. But a second special session is scheduled for May 23-27 to discuss property insurance reform.
A sudden announcement as the session begins would no longer be a surprise, after DeSantis added the elimination of Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District to last month’s special session on congressional maps on the day lawmakers convened.
Previously, the majority of anti-abortion bills had always fallen short with combined Democratic and moderate Republican opposition, often quietly dying in committees.
“In a different time, even just a couple of years ago, I would have thought there’s probably a few Republicans in the Senate that would not be on board with totally banning abortion,” Jewett said. “But I don’t know if that is the case anymore. Honestly, I just don’t.”
But DeSantis may not want to endanger his reelection chances this fall, he said.
“Politically, I think it would make sense for him to wait until the 2023 regular session, assuming he wins the election,” Jewett said. “... Republicans could run a risk of re-energizing and remobilizing the Democratic base on this issue if they really push it to the extreme.”
He said DeSantis and Republicans were fortunate that the 15-week law “did not seem to engender massive Democratic blowback. You didn’t see massive protests in Florida. It didn’t seem to light a fire under Democrats.”
But, he added, “if you tried to ban abortion outright in Florida, that would light a fire.”
Susan MacManus, a professor emerita of political science at the University of South Florida, said it would be a mistake to take on such an explosive issue while the Legislature was working on a solution to spiraling homeowner insurance prices.
“The pressing issue for a larger number of Floridians right now is the property insurance issue,” MacManus said. “And I would be really surprised if he loaded something onto the call for that special session of the magnitude of this issue. … I can’t tell you how many people are really having trouble with their finances right now, everywhere I go. And a lot of people are just getting ready to get their [insurance] bills this billing cycle.”
Mac Stipanovich, a Tallahassee consultant and anti-Trump Republican turned independent, echoed the potential downsides for DeSantis acting in an election year.
“I’m not sure what DeSantis gains from going back to war on the abortion issue just before his election,” Stipanovich said. “There’s some chance, although I don’t think it’s as great as a lot of people think, that women will be motivated to go to the polls in greater numbers than they usually might. If there’s any possibility of that, why further incentivize them? Why further enrage them?”
But, he said, “once he’s reelected, when he’s looking at the presidency in 2024, and there’s a large gap in time between his reelection and the voting in those primaries? Then the 2023 regular session would be a great time for him to tackle abortion. And he’d also have the advantage of a free look at what other states have done, particularly those with trigger laws, and how those have played out.”
DeSantis, however, had also seemed hesitant on abolishing Reedy Creek, saying only he was open to dissolving it, before announcing his plan to do so and signing it into law within the course of a few days.
“He’s a risk taker,” MacManus said. “So I don’t know. … It’s hard to tell how things are going to shake out in the heat of an issue that’s on fire.”
____
