BY JENNIFER CABRERA
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is warning Floridians that the passage of Amendment 4 could lead to taxpayer-funded abortions, a scenario that is currently playing out in Michigan.
Michigan voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2022 that guarantees a right to abortion, and the ACLU has now filed a lawsuit to overturn a Michigan ban on taxpayer-funded abortions, arguing that the state “must be ordered to provide Medicaid coverage for abortion and related services at reimbursement rates that will not unjustifiably deny, burden, or infringe access to abortion, as guaranteed by the Michigan Constitution.”
The lawsuit argues that without taxpayer funding for abortions, Michiganders would experience a “delay [in] access to care,” and this right to abortion without delay would also be guaranteed by the ballot language of Florida’s Amendment 4: “Except as provided in Article X, Section 22, 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” (emphasis added).
“The interest groups who wrote and continue to defend Amendment 4 have repeatedly refused to tell voters existing laws it would overturn,” said Attorney General Ashley Moody. “This Michigan case makes it crystal clear that reasonable laws that most people on both sides of the abortion issue support will be challenged in court if Amendment 4 passes. Because of how broad and misleading Amendment 4 is, voters need to understand that seemingly uncontroversial laws will likely be overturned.”
The ACLU alleges in the Michigan complaint that “the denial of [Medicaid] coverage to patients considering abortion care may delay their access to health care … Accordingly, the coverage ban burdens and infringes upon Medicaid-eligible patients’ constitutional right to reproductive freedom.”
In a press release, the Vote No on 4 campaign argued, “If Amendment 4 passes, the same ACLU lawyers will file the same lawsuit in Florida to use their deceptive amendment to overturn Florida’s law against public funding and force Florida taxpayers to pay for elective abortions. At only 34 words, Amendment 4 provides no definitions for any of its operative terms, creating enormous loopholes and entry points for inevitable lawsuits.”
Michigan lawsuit demonstrates potential consequence of Amendment 4 passage: taxpayer-funded abortions
