Additional reporting provided by WMNF’s Chris Young
This November, voters will decide whether to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution through Amendment Four.
But not if Gov. Ron DeSantis has anything to say about it.
The governor has railed against the ballot measure in a statewide tour at state-funded campaign-like rallies.
During one of his press conferences in Jacksonville on Tuesday, he was joined by doctors who told personal stories and shared anecdotes about why they do not support the measure.
Dr. Rebecca Peck said in the last 25 years she has practiced medicine, she’s come across many women who’ve regretted having an abortion.
She spoke of her experience as a young adult when she had two abortions herself.
“Ultimately, I had that abortion, and that led to seven years of a downward spiral with depression, anxiety, alcohol, and drug use to quench the pain,” Peck said.
She also mentioned that she was not fully informed about the procedure before having it done.
“There was no ultrasound offered, so I did not even understand the full scope of what was happening,” Peck said. “There was no waiting period required, so I didn’t even have time to fully wrap my head around it all. I didn’t have time to consider other choices.”
The ballot initiative’s language has been a hotly discussed topic. DeSantis called it “ill-defined” and said the amendment was deceptive.
“They’re just simply telling lies about Florida policies and law. They are all lies. Everything you’re seeing on the TV, that has just been their way to do it,” he said.
DeSantis called the measure a “bait and switch.”
“If it were to pass, that would take away people’s rights because this eliminates the right for parents to consent for a minor to have an abortion,” the governor said. “That’s current law in Florida, that you have parental consent.”
However, Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group responsible for getting the initiative on the ballot, said that is not the case.
They say parents would maintain their existing rights under the law.
In addition, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida says the measure would continue to uphold the legislature’s constitutional authority to require a parent or guardian to be notified before a minor had the procedure.
The amendment’s language reads “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. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
But DeSantis says the term viability is “ill-defined” and “deceptive.”
“If you read the way the amendment’s written, they create even an exception to that that effectively swallows the rule because they say any health care provider can greenlight an abortion up until the moment of birth, to, quote, protect the patient’s health,” the governor said.
But Floridians Protecting Freedom maintains that viability is different in every pregnancy and said the amendment uses the terminology and its meaning provided within Florida’s statutes.
The group adds abortions that far into pregnancy are extremely rare, and are typically the result of either fetal abnormalities or serious risks to the mother.
Lauren Brenzel is the campaign director for “Yes on 4.”
She joined four doctors who support the abortion measure in a video conference on Tuesday.
Brenzel said the group spoke out against the state’s current six-week ban on the procedure “despite being threatened by some of the highest ranking officials in the state with their licenses being taken away.”
Dr. Chelsea Daniels is a family medicine physician.
Daniels said she worked with a patient who was unable to get an abortion because she couldn’t prove she’d been raped.
“It’s for these patients that I speak up every single day, because as doctors, it is our ethical and moral obligation to do what is best for our patients, and this abortion ban is not what is best for our patients,” she said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the average number of abortions performed after 21 weeks nationally was less than 1 percent, according to the most recent data from 2021 provided by 46 states.
“These are things you don’t get a mulligan on,” DeSantis said. “Once it’s in the Constitution, there really is no going back.”
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