The state of Florida is now free to ban abortions after six weeks,
and that's according to a new ruling by the state Supreme Court.
Now, the new law, which can now go into effect, impacts nearly all abortions
at six weeks, which is before most women even know that they're pregnant, which is
effectively a full blown abortion ban.
But the court's decision also allows for a proposed amendment that would
protect abortion rights in the state, and that amendment would be put up on a ballot
for the state's residents to vote on.
So ultimately, Floridians will have a final say
on reproductive rights in the state.
But first, let's talk about the court permitting the strict abortion ban.
So back in 2022, Ron DeSantis signed a 15 week abortion ban passed
by the GOP controlled state legislature, which almost which was almost
immediately challenged in the courts.
Then, in April of 2023, just weeks before he announced
that he was planning to run for president, he signed a ban after six weeks.
Now, the 15 week ban has already been enforced, while the 15 week ban has been
enforced while it's being challenged in the courts, the six week ban was written
so that it would not take effect until a month after the 2022 law was upheld.
So yesterday, the conservative leaning court found 6 to 1
that the 15 week abortion ban enacted in 2022 was constitutional.
The ruling, in response to a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood,
the American Civil Liberties Union and several abortion providers,
will allow the 666 week ban enacted last year to take effect by May 1st.
The ban, by the way, does include exceptions for rape,
incest and the life of the mother.
But considering the fact that Texas passed a similar law,
we've seen how this is really played out.
There was a woman who had complications with her pregnancy, and she was
unable to get the courts in Texas to agree to allow her to get an abortion.
As a result, even though that pregnancy was not viable and also put
her reproductive health in jeopardy.
Now, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU argued that the Florida
Constitution's privacy clause explicitly protects the right to abortion
and should remain in force.
The privacy Clause in Florida, in the Florida Constitution,
states that every natural person has the right to be left alone,
or let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person's private life.
The Florida Supreme Court first ruled that it applied to abortion in 1989.
In 2012, voters rejected an amendment that would have exempted abortion
from constitutional privacy protections, but the current Supreme Court disagreed
in the majority decision authored by Justice Jamie Grosshans.
She says, we conclude there is no such basis under the Privacy Clause
to invalidate the statute.
In doing so, we recede from our prior decisions in which, relying on reasoning,
the US Supreme Court has rejected, we held that the privacy clause guaranteed
the right to receive an abortion through the end of the second trimester.
Based on our analysis finding no clear right to abortion
embodied within the privacy Clause.
Planned Parenthood cannot overcome the presumption of constitutionality,
and is unable to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt
that a 15 week ban is unconstitutional.
So in 30 days, the ban will go into effect.
But it's not just women in Florida who will be impacted by this.
Florida has been one of those states where other, like women in other surrounding
red states have traveled to in order to get their reproductive rights met.
But now it's going to be incredibly difficult to do.
So. Here's one doctor explaining the ramifications of the ban last year,
as it was making its way through the legislature.
A ban, a six week ban here in Florida means that patients from around the
southeast will have to travel potentially even further, or just may not be able
to access care every week.
You know, we're seeing patients from Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas,
Louisiana who travel hundreds of miles to Florida, which is the nearest place
for them, often to access care, so that they can get the care that they need.
So certainly this six week ban will be devastating here and around the southeast.
So before we get to the ballot initiative that could actually save
reproductive rights in Florida, I wanted to have you weigh in Genk.
Because, look, there's the real world ramifications for human beings,
for women in this case.
But there are also some political ramifications for the Republican Party
should this actually go through and be implemented in the state of Florida?
We know that Republicans have already suffered electoral losses as a result
of their stance on reproductive rights, and the Biden camp is kind of salivating
over this because they see this as a way a campaign cry, essentially,
to get people to vote for him in Florida.
Pausing here to deliver some honest truth, as we do in our news coverage as well.
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So two different issues here.
One is the between the courts and the legislature in Florida.
And the other is the political issue that Anna is referring to.
First of all, I don't know if you'll be surprised, but I actually don't think
that the courts are, wrong here.
So I, you know, I'm not a conservative.
I, don't think that there should be, I think Roe v Wade was great legislation
and wasn't legislation, but it should have been.
And so I'm as pro-choice as it gets, but, they're saying, well,
the Supreme Court said there is no right to privacy in this context.
Well, what are they supposed to do? Right?
And I don't even think that that's a bad argument, to be honest.
So but that but that doesn't mean the legislators what the court is saying
is we're deferring to the legislatures because there's
no constitutional issue here.
That doesn't mean the legislators have to take away your right to privacy and a
right to abortion and reproductive rights, and the ability to control your own body.
Right. They're choosing to do that.
That's why they're the bad guys.
So if you are live in Florida and you vote for a Republican,
they're going to take away your right to choose what to do with your body.
That's now a stone cold fact.
It doesn't matter if you're offended by how I phrased it, it's a fact.
Republicans in Florida are against women controlling their own bodies, and they
will take that freedom away from you.
They and they act as kind of a Gestapo looking for who's pregnant.
Was it a miscarriage? Was it an abortion?
I'm going to judge. Judge?
You judge your whole life. Judge how you handle the pregnancy.
Did you ever smoke, did you drink, did you, etc.
Then I'm going to blame you.
I'm going to put you in jail, and I'm going to capture your body
because I don't believe in freedom.
So here we are, back in the South.
Okay, so that's who the Republicans are and understand it.
Now when it gets to the politics of it in terms of Democrats versus Republicans,
well, guys, we're all screwed.
We're caught in the middle here. There's no one to vote for.
They're all monsters.
They are all, you know, work for their donors to begin with.
So that's a stone cold fact.
So Democrats, if you want me to lie on your behalf
and say your angels, you're not, you'll do anything a donor tells you to do.
Okay, now, having said that, the Republicans, you just can't vote for them.
So we're left with a choice of do I hold my nose, my ears, my eyes, everything,
and just vomit all the way through the entire process and vote for a Democrat?
Or do I not vote at all? Because you can't vote Republican.
Republican means, yeah, take my freedom and I now serve you.
I'm your servant and you could do whatever you want with my body
and and then judge my whole life.
I'm a woman. I don't count what's after Republicans.
No chance I'd ever vote for monsters like that.
What's incredible is they're still operating as though,
you know, the, what was it called?
The Moral Majority is still incredibly powerful and influential.
Their own voters, Republican voters, want to keep abortion legal in the first
trimester, the majority of them, right.
When you pull everyone in the country, regardless of political affiliation,
you know, two thirds of Americans want to maintain reproductive rights.
And that has been manifested in previous elections.
The midterm election was supposed to be a red wave, and it wasn't a red wave,
partly because of the backlash the Republican Party was facing
due to these anti, you know, abortion laws that have passed in various states.
And so much like other red states that have taken this issue, to the ballot
box with a ballot initiative, I suspect that Floridians are going
to strike down the possibility of a six week abortion ban in the state of Florida.
I could be wrong.
And if I'm wrong, I'll come on the show and I'll admit that I'm wrong.
But they're definitely so that's not the issue.
The issue is whether the corrupt legislators
are going to allow ballot measures.
Because, remember, Florida passed a ballot measure
saying that, ex-felons could vote.
And then the legislators were like, oh, that's inconvenient.
They're voting for Democrats.
The more we think they're voting for Democrats more than Republicans.
So then they started chipping away at that.
They did that ballot measure, and they started taking away those votes.
And then they started imprisoning people who voted when they thought
it was legal to vote.
And so legislators have done this, and this time it's
almost exclusively Republicans.
We're the most honest show. We ripped the Democrats on a daily basis.
They do horrible things all the time, mainly on a national level,
but yes, sometimes on the local level too.
But when it's ballot initiatives, it's almost always Republican legislators
go, I don't like it.
They passed an anti-corruption one in South Dakota saying you
can't take lobbyists gifts anymore.
They're like, well, so what?
And they ripped it up and they said, we're going to take the gifts anyway.
We're Republicans were corrupt and we're proud.
So here they'll try to take away your votes in Florida.
You're nuts to vote for a Republican. Totally nuts.
They're even more corrupt than the Democrats.
And they hate your freedom.
They want their version of religion to control everything you do in your life.
Why would I vote for that? That's insanity.
I'm not in your stupid look.
Your religion is not stupid or smart. It's yours.
It's not mine, okay? And for me to follow your rules.
No, that's the exact opposite of the point of this country.
It's not just about women. It's about the idea.
Does your interpretation, and almost always a barbaric interpretation of your
religion control all of our lives or not?
And if you vote Republican, you're saying, yes, I want some random evil person
to interpret the Bible and make all of us do their stupid interpretation.
No deal.
So just a few details on the amendment that voters in Florida
will be able to make a decision about.
So the the court did rule 4 to 3 that a proposed constitutional amendment
that would guarantee the right to abortion before viability, usually around 24 weeks,
could go on the November ballot.
Now, how would it be written? What would it do exactly?
Well, the proposed constitutional amendment that will be on the November
ballot says no law shall prohibit penalized delay or restrict abortion
before viability or when necessary to.
Protect the patient's health as determined by the patient's health care provider.
It provides for one exception that is already in the state constitution.
Parents must be notified before their minor children can get an abortion.
And if you're wondering, well, how do the people of Florida feel about,
you know, keeping reproductive rights intact to pass?
Keep in mind they need, you know, 60% of voters in November to vote in favor
of that constitutional protection.
According to a November University of North Florida poll, 62% of
voters indicated that they would vote yes on the abortion rights ballot measure.
More than half of Republican respondents, 53%,
said that they would vote affirmatively.
So that poll does have a margin of error of 4.37%.
But honestly, the results of the poll didn't surprise me,
considering you see similar trends nationally when these polls are done
by other pollsters, including Gallup.
Pew.
- You get the point. - Okay.
So look, I asked Democratic voters all the time, why do you bother
to go into a primary to vote for a corrupt establishment Democrat?
Why do you, like, get out of bed to be like, oh, rah rah, I hope that they
give Exxon Mobil even more subsidies.
What's the goddamn point?
So I asked Republican voters, now, if 53% of you want reproductive freedom,
then why are you all voting for Republican politicians who are
universally against reproductive freedom?
What's wrong with you? That's what primaries are for.
Is it conceivable that a Republican that isn't more barbaric
would win in a Republican primary?
I don't know, you guys tell me you're the Republicans, right?
For those of you who are watching out there, is it conceivable that someone
who doesn't want to take away our freedom, doesn't want to be backwards and barbaric,
could win in a Republican primary?
You tell me if you.
But if you keep putting these guys back in, don't tell me you're for
reproductive freedom because you're not.
You vote for guys who take away that right from women, so own it.
So if you voted for DeSantis and you're going to vote for him again,
and you're going to vote for these Republicans, you're the one who wants
to take away freedom from women.
And don't pretend you're not. You are.
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