By Dave Andrusko
As we reported earlier, the Florida Supreme Court has set Sept. 8 as the date for oral arguments in the challenge to the state’s protective law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks.
“If the Supreme Court finds in the 15-week case that the privacy clause [in the state constitution] does not protect abortion rights, it would effectively allow the state to move forward with the six-week limit”–The Heartbeat Protection Act–which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on April 14, according to the Miami Herald.
The protective six-week Heartbeat Protection Act was supposed to take effect on June 1. “But first, the state’s top court must decide if the ‘Fetal Protection Act,’ which passed in 2022, violates the right to privacy enshrined in the Florida Constitution,” according to Rachel Tucker.
With pro-life laws being passed in surrounding states such Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia, Florida has become a pro-abortion tourism destination—or a “safe haven,” as the BBC described the law.
According to data posted on the state Agency for Health Care Administration website, “more than 38,000 abortions were performed in the state during the first half of 2023,” News Service of Florida reported. “The report, dated July 3, said 38,244 abortions had been performed this year.”
”About one-third of the abortions were performed on residents of Miami-Dade and Broward counties, while 3,390 were performed on women from other states.”
When pro-life governor DeSantis signed Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act, into law, the New York Times’s gloom and doom headline was “DeSantis Signs Six-Week Abortion Ban in Florida: The prohibition is among the most restrictive in the country, and Florida will no longer be a destination for women from across the Deep South seeking the procedure.”
Well…yes!
“We are proud to support life and family in the state of Florida,”said Gov. DeSantis. “I applaud the Legislature for passing the Heartbeat Protection Act that expands pro-life protections and provides additional resources for young mothers and families.”
The vast majority of these abortions are performed on healthy babies of healthy mothers who are conceived consensually, and half of these elective abortions take place after 6 weeks—after the baby has a beating heart.