Amendment 4 is being attacked by DeSantis and his whole government. They have taken a number of steps that are meant to kill the bill.
Floridians will be able to vote on one of the most controversial issues in the country next week because of a political fight over abortion rights. Gov.
Ron DeSantis has been very against it, which has led to a lot of lawsuits and tens of millions of dollars spent on ads before the election.
The Floridians Protecting Freedom political group started a campaign to get what looks like Amendment 4 on the ballot.
This came after DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a law last year that makes it harder for women to get abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The law became law on May 1 after being approved by the Florida Supreme Court.
If the proposed constitutional amendment is passed, it would say that no law could ban, punish, delay, or limit abortion before the baby is viable or when the patient’s healthcare provider says it is necessary to protect the patient’s health.
Floridians Protecting Freedom, a group that has raised more than $100 million for the effort, and other supporters of the amendment say that the six-week law makes it hard for many women to get abortions and puts the health of women who are having problems with their pregnancy at risk.
For his part, DeSantis has used all of his administration’s resources to fight Amendment 4. He has taken a number of actions that are meant to kill the bill.
Along with religious and health care leaders who are against abortion, DeSantis traveled all over the state last week as governor to speak out against the plan.
James Uthmeier, who is the chief of staff to the governor, is in charge of two political groups that have raised millions of dollars to fight Amendment 4 and Amendment 3, which would let people use marijuana for recreational purposes.
At a news conference that looked like a campaign rally on Oct. 21, DeSantis talked about the abortion plan.
“This is a very purposely deceptive and vague amendment that is written to basically deceive as many voters as possible so they can somehow get this thing across the finish line,” he said.
DeSantis is after an ad for Amendment 4 that says the state’s six-week law doesn’t allow abortions when the pregnant woman’s life is in danger.
The ad, called “Caroline,” is controversial because it shows a woman who was 18 weeks pregnant when she was told she had brain cancer.
Doctors told the woman that they could not use chemotherapy or radiation on her while she was pregnant, so she had taken the life. The ad says that under Florida’s current rule, she would not be able to get an abortion.
The state Department of Health told TV stations that the ad was a “health nuisance” and told them to pull the commercials. This led Floridians Protecting Freedom to file a federal case.
This month, Chief U.S. District Chief Judge Mark Walker granted the committee’s request for a temporary restraining order. This order says that state officials can’t do anything against the committee or the stations who showed the ad.
Florida’s six-week rule is one of the strictest in the country when it comes to abortion, but it does make exceptions for a pregnant woman’s health and cases of rape and incest up to 15 weeks into the pregnancy.
But people who support the measure say that the paperwork needed to meet the restrictions is so complicated that many patients can’t do it.
Many doctors are afraid of getting in trouble with the law, which says that two doctors must “certify in writing that, in reasonable medical judgment,” an abortion after six weeks is necessary.
If they do not, they could face jail time or large fines. The law also lets a woman have an abortion if her doctor “certifies in writing” that she needs one right away to save her life and there is no other doctor available.
Proponents of the measure say that the six-week law has made things more difficult for obstetricians and gynecologists because they have to talk to lawyers and ethics groups before they can treat pregnant women in an emergency.
In a news call last week, Samantha Baer, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Tampa, said, “Patients are not getting care until they are on the verge of dying, even if we put them at risk of a life-threatening infection… even if their ability to have children in the future is in danger.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the decades-old Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision in 2022, many Republican-led states passed tight abortion bans. Florida was one of these states.
Concerns about abortion have been at the center of American politics for the past two years. Vice President Kamala Harris has made it a central part of her Democratic presidential campaign.
Amendment 4 supporters in Florida say they are not affiliated with any political party and have sought the help of many Republicans to help get the 60 percent approval that is needed for any changes to the state’s constitution to become law.
Democrats are trying to weaken the GOP’s grip on Florida by uniting around the issue of abortion. This is because Republicans have more seats in both houses of the legislature and no open seats at the statewide level.
Stopping the abortion bill, on the other hand, could improve DeSantis’ standing among Republicans across the country and make it easier for him to run for president again after his failed 2024 campaign.
It could be seen as a major win that DeSantis “kneecapped,” to use the governor’s favorite word, the proposed amendment. This is in contrast to other GOP-led states where efforts to protect abortion rights have been successful.
The DeSantis administration is also paying for public service messages and a website that warn against the abortion measure.
The letters threatening broadcasters are just one more way that they are showing their opposition. It’s not clear how much the state has paid to try to stop the plan.
An attorney in Tallahassee named Barry Richard, who focuses on constitutional law, said that the governor’s clear resistance to Amendment 4 is unprecedented.
Richard said that he was involved in the writing of both Amendment 3 and Amendment 4, but he is not currently working on either one.
Richard told The News Service of Florida in an interview that it is “common and always had been” for governors to have strong feelings about suggested changes to the Constitution.
It seems like that’s part of his job as governor. Richard, who is married to state Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee, said, “People need to know what he thinks about something.
” “But that’s not the same thing as actually using taxpayer money to run a campaign for or against an amendment.” I think that those things are wrong. They’ve never been done before, and I think it’s a very bad act to follow.
People who are against the amendment have also filed cases that use a report from the Office of Election Crimes and Security at the Florida Department of State as a main source.
Some of the people who collected signatures on the petition for the abortion measure were accused of fraud in the report. It was also said that Floridians Protecting Freedom illegally paid workers based on how many signatures they got.
