(TALLAHASSEE, FL) – Lawyers for Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody today argued before the Florida Supreme Court that the ballot language of a proposed amendment banning all regulation of abortion in Florida is misleading and fails to adequately inform voters of what that amendment actually does.
“This effort to hoodwink the Florida electorate should be rebuffed”, Moody said in a brief filed with the court.
The amendment is written in a way that its many loopholes are disguised as safeguards, allowing any “health care provider” – not just doctors – to determine if a fetus is viable and what health concern would justify a late term or even full-term abortion. The Attorney General’s brief pointed out that even a non-medical staff person at an abortion clinic could potentially make this determination if the amendment were to pass.
These deliberate loopholes mean that the amendment would allow abortion right up to the moment of birth, including when a baby is capable of feeling pain with no protections for the unborn baby.
Because the amendment bans any government regulation of abortion, it would nullify even modest regulations on the abortion industry that almost everyone supports – including laws regarding safe and sanitary practices, the law requiring parental consent for minor children to have an abortion, and laws against late term abortions when babies can feel the pain of the procedure.
“Voters have a right to know what an amendment actually does,” said Dr. Mary Jo O’Sullivan, President of Florida Voters Against Extremism, a group established to oppose the amendment which also had a brief before the court on this matter. “This amendment’s implications are overly broad, and its true purpose and intent are hidden from Florida Voters. That is why it should be rejected by the Court.”
The amendment is bankrolled by extreme abortion interests who once lobbied against a Florida Law requiring medical care in the rare instances when a baby is born alive during an abortion procedure. These extremists spent over $15 million on out-of-state petition gathering firms to gather signatures required for ballot placement.
