Abortion rights restricted in Florida

Get the Point!

With a collective stroke of the pen, Florida's conservative dominated state Supreme Court held yesterday that a law passed in 2022 that bans abortions after six weeks—and signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron Desantis—is constitutional. 

The Florida Supreme Court building in downtown Tallahassee…

With the ruling, Florida women and girls—like all of the states in the Old Confederacy as depicted below—must now travel great distances to obtain a safe abortion. 

As I've written many times through the years, I believe that the decision to abort is highly personal—one that many millions of women and girls have wrestled with from time immemorial. 

As I've also written, from my freshman year in high school in 1986 to today, a time spanning almost 38 years, I've known a great many girls/women who not only made the decision to abort—but are still coping with whether they made the right choice according to their moral or religious feelings many years later. 

But to me, the key words in the preceding paragraph are "they," "their," and "choice," meaning, I fervently believe that my religious beliefs or moral feelings do not (and should not) be imputed by law to the next person!

Lest we forget that the very First Amendment to the United States Constitution not only forbids the establishment of a national religion, but it also prevents the federal and/or state governments from imposing restrictions on the free exercise of any religion—including the choice to have no religious beliefs at all! 

Nevertheless, long before I was in ninth grade and first learned that a friend my age had chosen to abort, I knew that in the early 1980's, there was a small but growing group of conservatives who were vested in blurring the line that separates church and state in America. I knew that these so-called faith leaders were preaching to their flocks to support conservative candidates who pledged to appoint judges who would work to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1974 law that provided a judicial right to abortion rights. 

Well, what started off as a small right wing fringe movement in the late 20th Century came to a head in 2016 when Republican Donald Trump—one who promised on the campaign trail to overturn Roe—defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton for the presidency.

Abortion opponents protesting at the U.S. Supreme Court this past January

In short order, Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court; during their confirmation hearings, all three Trump appointees were asked whether they felt that Roe was "settled law," and all three ostensibly lied under oath because in 2023, each (predictably) voted in the majority to overturn Roe in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. 

Henceforth, what's well settled law—at least for the time being—is that each state can set its own rules regarding abortion. And if there is a silver lining in yesterday's Florida Supreme Court ruling, it’s their separate edict—by a 4-3 margin—that approved a ballot initiative that, if passed, could provide a Florida Constitutional right to an abortion up to the 24th week of pregnancy.

With the numerical divide between registered Democrats and Republicans in Florida being slim, conventional wisdom would suggest that it will be difficult for the amendment to gain the 60 percent super-majority necessary to become law. Still, such is possible because while many may not say it out loud, there are a fair number of Republican women who support abortion rights and when standing alone in the voting booth, may show just how much they support a woman's choice to have a safe abortion procedure where it matters most—via the ballot! 

Stay tuned…