this is "Facing South Florida" with Jim DeFede.
- Welcome to "Facing South Florida."
I'm Jim DeFede and later in the show,
I will speak to Marc Caputo,
a longtime political reporter
in Florida about the Trump indictment
and the impact on the Presidential race.
But we start with a new initiative to place the issue of
abortion on the ballot in Florida during the 2024 election.
As you know, the Florida Legislature
recently passed a six-week abortion ban and essentially,
that's an outright ban on abortion in Florida.
A new group, the Florida Women's Freedom Coalition,
is now collecting signatures to protect the healthcare
rights of women by going back to the 24-week standard
that was in effect for decades.
This week, I spoke to Anna Hochkammer,
the Vice Mayor of Pinecrest and the Executive Director
of the Florida Women's Freedom Coalition.
I asked her about where we are as a nation
one year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
- I think on the ground across the 50 states,
we're seeing a greater division than ever before.
You have states that have gone
to constitutionally guarantee the access to abortion.
You have states that have basically
enacted total prohibitions on abortion.
That's despite the fact that national surveys
demonstrate time and time again
that between 65 and 75% of Americans
want abortion to be accessible, safe and legal.
They understand that it's part of healthcare
for every family, every woman and girl in the United States.
So a year after the overturning of Roe,
we find ourselves living in a country
where your ability to access healthcare,
your ability to access sometimes lifesaving services
depends very much on geography
and so
we are experiencing a time where
living in a certain city or a certain state can have life
or death differential outcomes for individuals in America.
That is a really disturbing place to be.
- I recently spoke to Florida's former Surgeon General
Scott Rivkees just about his experiences in Florida
and one of the things that he said worried him
overall in the country was that we're developing
a system very much what you were just talking about
where there's red state healthcare
and there's blue state healthcare
as opposed to just healthcare
and that can get very, very dangerous
and in the South in particular,
Florida for the longest time was
sort of a safe harbor, a safe venue at least
before when it was around the 24-week mark
and now slowly it's been regressed down
to 15 weeks and six weeks.
So pick up on that.
Let's talk about where this fight is now
in Florida and the impact here in Florida.
- Well, there's no question
that the almost total prohibition on access
to abortion in the band of Southern states
just to the north of Florida has been felt
inside the State of Florida because we've seen an
over five figures increase in the number of abortions
performed in the state of Florida since Roe was overturned.
It means that people are traveling here from the region
in order to get the healthcare that they need.
There's absolutely no question that that's happening.
What the consequences of the six-week ban
which was signed into law earlier this year
in Florida would be was that that safe haven,
it disappears in this region of the United States
and at that point, we're talking about really long distances
and expensive trips to fly to other parts of the nation
in order to get that type of healthcare services.
Now like most of these issues,
you have red state and blue state
but you also have rich and poor
and there are segments of the country who can
easily get on a plane and fly wherever they need to go
and pay out of pocket for whatever services they need.
They're gonna be fine.
But for most Americans and for most Floridians,
it's not an easy lift to buy a plane ticket,
to fly somewhere, to pay for a hotel, to pay
for services with a doctor or a clinic you don't know,
to have to recover from whatever medical need
you've just had addressed and then get yourself home
while you're working, while you're raising other children,
while you're taking care of other family members.
So the consequences of this little change
in healthcare policy will be felt in every single family
across the state sooner or later and probably sooner.
- Let's be real clear so folks understand.
We were at roughly 24 weeks.
Then the Legislature a year ago took it to 15
and then this last session took it to six.
But explain why the six-week ban isn't in effect yet.
Explain to me how this is going to work
because right now, the law in Florida is 15 weeks
while it's under review by the State Supreme Court.
- Right. - But pick it up from there.
- The 15-week abortion ban was challenged
by several groups in several different lawsuits,
one of which was a challenge
based on a religious freedom principle.
That challenge to the 15-week ban
is set to be heard by the Florida Supreme Court.
They're either going to evaluate
the 15-week ban and announce that it complies
with the Florida Constitution or they're going to reject it.
The way the six-week ban was written,
it doesn't go into effect until the 15-week
ban case is heard by the Florida Supreme Court
and passes scrutiny of the court.
So the minute the 15-week ban is signed off on
by the Florida Supreme Court, it will become a six-week ban,
a de facto total ban on abortion in Florida.
- Explain why you believe that's a total ban in Florida.
- Listen, we use terms like weeks
and months and viability all the time in pregnancy
but pregnancy and childbirth is a very gray area.
The way you count pregnancy by weeks
actually contains the first two weeks
when you're not pregnant at all.
Because the only date that we're able to benchmark
in a woman's reproductive cycle is the date
that her last menstrual cycle began.
Conception then happens actually two weeks or so after that.
So by the time you are four weeks pregnant,
you've actually only been carrying an embryo for two weeks.
When you're six weeks pregnant,
at the most, you actually have an embryo
that's been gestating for four weeks.
Most women at that point have no idea they're pregnant.
They're still simply a little bit late on their period.
In fact, most pregnancy tests
can't detect pregnancy that early.
So the idea that there is any window
with which to seek care,
with which to seek a termination
in a six-week ban environment is really a false flag.
It's a total ban when you put it into practice.
- All right, so now you're part of a group that is working
towards getting something on the ballot in 2024.
Talk to me about that.
- There's a really broad coalition of groups.
Some of them come out of
the reproductive healthcare movement.
Some of them come out of the Civil Rights movement.
Some of them are just groups of Floridians
who are not ideological but who understand
that access to abortion is really important for the health
and safety of women and their families here in Florida.
So an initiative started.
There's a petition circulating all over the state.
Very simple, straightforward language
saying that the Florida Legislature can't prohibit
or penalize access to abortion before a viability
or when it's necessary to protect a patient's health
as determined by that patient's healthcare provider.
It doesn't take away the Legislature's capacity
to require that notice be given to parents
or guardians if a minor is seeking treatment.
None of that.
It's a very straightforward, simple language.
Nothing complicated.
We need to get about 900,000 valid petitions signed
from every corner of the State of Florida by December 31st,
2023 so that it can all be scrutinized and approved
and ready to go on the November 2024 ballot
when we know that because it's a Presidential year
and because I think there'll be a lot of attention
on Florida, we should have some tremendous turnout
and see the will of the Floridian voter
really register on that down ballot petition.
- And Florida hasn't been alone in this.
Kansas did this very similar thing
and voters in Kansas, which is a red state,
came out in support of reproductive rights
and in support of abortion.
So I think Florida,
I think every poll I've seen
shows that Floridians support a woman's right
to be able to govern her own body
and yet the Legislature passed this six-week ban.
Square that for me.
Reconcile the fact that the Legislature
reacted and the Governor is pushing one thing
when all polling suggests that the people
of Florida have a very different view.
- Well, I agree, I think you're right.
There's no question.
75% of Floridians reject the six-week ban.
The language that's in this petition
guaranteeing access to abortion gets a 70% approval
by Floridians in every poll that we've been able to run.
It polls at over 60% approval with Republicans.
It polls at about 57% approval even with Trump voters.
Florida is a state where access to safe and legal abortion
is a general issue of consensus and unity.
It doesn't matter where we stand on other issues
or where we stand in a partisan scenario or ideologically.
Now I can't project myself
into the Florida Legislature's minds.
I can't project myself into the Governor's mind.
I can assume that there is some strategy
which doesn't necessarily involve
representing the interests, preferences and policy positions
of actual Floridians and actual Florida voters.
We are the fourth-largest state.
We have about four million women
living here who are of reproductive age
and let's not forget, those women are parts of families.
They're our children, our mothers,
our daughters, our sisters, our friends.
That means every single Floridian family
is being disserved
by the repeated initiatives to cut off
access to what is fundamentally basic,
important healthcare which may be necessary
in every family's life at some point or another
and so I encourage everyone who can to chip in
to make sure that we can protect the health
and wellbeing of women and girls across the state.
Talk about this issue with your friends and your family.
You would be surprised at how many people
from different walks of life have had experiences with it
and understand why it's important for the health,
wellbeing, safety of Florida women and girls
to have access to safe and legal abortion.
- If you want to learn more about what they are doing,
you can go to their website at
FloridaWomensFreedomCoalition.c.
Now when we come back,
we talk about Trump's Miami court appearance,
his visit to Versailles and the entry
of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez into the Republican primary.
Ooh, it's so exciting.
Stay with us.