Florida legislative leaders to discuss further restrictions on abortions

This could be a set up for DeSantis to veto the bill.

 

I agree. The 11-year old girl who is impregnated by her boyfriend should not be able to get an abortion if she waits past 12 weeks to tell her parents. Also the pregnant woman who finds out in week 16 that her baby will be born without any limbs and will have an intelligence that never exceeds that of the pet hamster should not be able to get an abortion. She didn’t know until it was too late. Tough luck. Nor should the pregnant homeless woman who lives in a big cardboard box with her 6 kids be able to get an abortion if she doesn’t find out she’s pregnant until week 13. We call this tough love.

 

The 11-year old girl who is impregnated by her boyfriend should not be able to get an abortion if she waits past 18 weeks to tell her parents. Also the pregnant woman who finds out in week 24 that her baby will be born without any limbs and will have an intelligence that never exceeds that of the pet hamster should not be able to get an abortion. She didn’t know until it was too late. Tough luck. Nor should the pregnant homeless woman who lives in a big cardboard box with her 6 kids be able to get an abortion if she doesn’t find out she’s pregnant until week 15. We call this tough love.

See chief. Pick any cutoff and I'll shoot holes in it just as fast. Some people want no abortions for any reason, and some people want 3rd trimester available. Personally, I'm fine with up to week 23 or so, when complex brain activity begins. But while I disagree, I understand the reasoning behind those who want no abortions at all. If we aren't willing to find a reasonable compromise of some kind we aren't going to ever move forward.

 

It's going to happen. It takes time to craft the right language. Keep in mind that the Florida Supreme Court is majority DeSantis appointees. They're going to look for any excuse to block the initiative from getting on the ballot.

DeSantis wants every part of this. We all knew this was coming if he got reelected. He has to prove his hard-right bonafides to the anti-abortion crowd for the 2024 primary.

 

The people of Florida voted for abortion protections under the Roe framework and put it in our state constitution. That's the "compromise," third trimester.

 

Not really, no. The State Supreme Court interpreted it that way.

If the people of Florida voted for an amendment to outright ban all abortions you'd respect their will?

 

Would you want to live if you were going to be born with no limbs and never be able to have brain function better than that of a hamster?

Better yet, would you want to be the parent to have to care for that person (who if they knew better wouldn't want to be alive)?

Do you really want to be a child born to an 11 year old mother? Can you imagine being an 11 year old and being pregnant and even knowing WTF you were going to do? These things arent simple, and most are circumstantial. We don't have the right as third parties to chime in and tell another woman what she can and can't do with her reproductive autonomy.

The compromise that needs to be made is for pro lifers to understand they have the choice to not get an abortion. If they are pro life physicians, they don't have to give abortions and can simply refer them to somewhere else. If America is about freedom, let the choice be left to the women, their doctors and their families. It isn't anyone else's burden to carry. Republicans need to move on, this is a waste.

 

Yes, really, yes. They voted for a right to privacy less than 10 years after SCOTUS ruled the right to privacy protects abortion access until the third trimester. And then, when the Republicans tried to pass an amendment decades later that stripped abortion rights out of the state constitution, guess what happened? They lost (55% voted no).

If the people of Florida voted for an amendment that outright banned all abortions, my stance would be that the state constitution bans abortions.

 

I don't disagree with any of that. My point is that any cutoff point you give me can be shown to be arbitrary. The definition of when life begins is just as easily argued at conception as it is at live birth. And any point in between. Yet nobody is arguing that abortions should be legal up to live birth. That's why I generally stay out of these threads. Nobody is willing to admit it's all just an arbitrary decision as to when life begins based on the individual.

And both of your examples are asking if I'd rather be alive than dead. I'd rather be alive.

 

Where, specifically, in the Florida Constituion does it address abortions? Not implied by courts. Where was it voted on?

 

The right to privacy, dude. This is like asking where in the Constitution it addresses the right to own/possess ammunition or the right to post your political opinions on the internet.

 

I understand the stakes of the pro-life fight and what it means to the pro-life movement.

But Republicans just had a midterm election that went about as poorly as it could have gone, maybe be strategic in how, when, and to what extent you push pro-life legislation.

If you keep pushing your luck in testing the waters with what voters will tolerate, eventually you'll just lose power, and Democrats will get to write the rules, and these same pro-lifers will get none of what they want.

Sometimes it's better to compromise to gain political power and gain supporters, than stick to your principles, lose power, and lose on your principles.

I am beyond irritated with the Republican Party right now. It feels like the dumbest people are being the loudest and calling the shots when they should be listening to the people in the Party who actually know what they're doing, who were just extremely successful in the midterms. If you're in Texas, ride Abbott's coattails. If you're in Georgia, Kemp; if you're in Florida, DeSantis; who if you've just been paying attention avoided the abortion issue like the plague in his gubernatorial campaign. Maybe he senses rolling far more restrictive abortion legislation than 15 weeks may not be the best political move in Florida. LISTEN TO HIM.

 

Even if abortion falls under the "right to privacy," the Court still has to pick a point where that right ends. It's not like the right to privacy is guaranteed throughout the entire pregnancy. A line has to be drawn.

Yes, Roe drew a line at the first trimester, then another less restrictive measure (on government) for the second trimester, and basically allowed prohibitions post-viability (with exceptions).

Yes, Florida passed a privacy law after the Roe decision. Yes, the Supreme Court's interpretation of privacy at the time included the viability framework of Roe. But current courts are not bound to bad law and bad decisions. And like it or not, Roe is now bad law.

The people of Florida and the legislature are more than capable of drawing a specific line via amendment or legislation. That's both a safer and more honest way of handling the abortion issue, anyways.

 

The people of Florida already did when they voted for the right to privacy right after Roe. It would take some serious bad faith to say, "Yeah, the voters understood the right to privacy to protect the right to abortion when they voted for it, but we're going to reject Roe's framework and rule that the state can ban abortion at any point it wants."

 

He probably should reconsider after last Tuesday.

 

Just one more thing for independents to consider before voting for Desantis in a presidential election.

 

I didn’t say “at any point it wants.” The Florida Supreme Court may very well say the right to privacy includes abortion to some degree.

I’m saying they are not bound to draw the line in the exact same place as bad law and a bad decision even for its time, in Roe.

Now, I personally think the Florida Supreme Court can even say that Florida's right to privacy does not include abortion, but I don't even need to be right on that count to be right on the notion that the Florida legislature can ban abortions up until 15 weeks with exceptions regarding the life of the mother, and still remain within the confines of the Florida Constitution.

In a nutshell, I don't think Roe is legally binding really in any way anymore. You want Roe's framework to binding to the Florida interpretation of "privacy," despite being bad law and a bad decision which was highly disputed even for its time.

 

That would be a political miscalculation on his part.

He doesn't need to be strong on abortion to win the primary, and that would almost certainly hurt him in the general election, and he seems to know the latter to be true.

 

The Florida Supreme Court can say whatever it wants. If you have the votes, you get to say what the law is. But claiming that the right to privacy doesn't protect access to abortion wouldn't be a principled stance. But reality is that a lot of "judges" aren't principled people.

Regardless, whatever the debate about the meaning of the phrase "right to privacy," I don't think the amendment text could be more clear: "Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life[.]"

The Supreme "Court" overturned Roe in 2022. Floridians voted on the right to privacy in 1980. In 1980, the right to privacy was defined in part by Roe's framework. I'm arguing for original meaning. I'm arguing for what the voters understood they were codifying. Events that occurred 40+ years later are irrelevant to what people understood at the time.

 

The average layperson isn't a lawyer, legal expert, or legal enthusiast.

I would wager that a great number of people did not know where exactly Roe "drew the line" as far as right to privacy, assuming all of them even understood codifying a "right to privacy" as "codifying a right to an abortion."

I'm all for putting abortion specifically on the ballot again. I don't want the people of Florida to be cheated, but I also don't want us leaning on bad law and flawed interpretations in perpetuity. If the people of Florida want abortion until point of viability to be a Constitutional right in the Florida Constitution, so be it. You seem to think that's already clear based on the current "right to privacy." I respectfully disagree.