Several leading Republicans, including former president Donald Trump and Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have since embraced less protective pro-life positions.
Despite floating the idea of supporting a national abortion ban earlier in his campaign, Trump announced on April 8 that he would not support any federal abortion policy and that the issue is “up to the states.”
For his part, Scott said that he would support replacing Florida’s six-week law with a more permissive 15-week abortion limit.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, criticized the Florida six-week law as “extreme” and has signaled his belief that support for abortion will propel him to victory in the 2024 general election.
“Trump is scrambling,” Biden said. “He’s worried that since he’s the one responsible for overturning Roe, the voters will hold him accountable in 2024. Well, I have news for Donald: They will.”
Biden is set to make a campaign stop in Tampa on Tuesday, where he is expected to speak on abortion and the six-week pro-life law.
Can Florida buck the trend?
With all this at play, John White, a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., told CNA that from a purely political perspective, “there is very little that can be done to defeat the initiative.”
“The six-week abortion ban in Florida is very likely to be overturned by the ballot initiative,” he said. “In every state in which a ballot initiative has appeared, the pro-life forces have lost. I don’t think Florida will be any different.”
“We have already seen the national significance of this issue and its ability to galvanize majorities of voters. Florida will only add to this,” he added.
Yet, Seana Sugrue, a politics professor at Ave Maria University in southwest Florida, said that this abortion showdown is “different from the other states both procedurally and substantively.”
She pointed out that while the abortion amendments in Ohio and Michigan only required a simple majority to pass, the Florida amendment must clear a 60% threshold to be added to the state’s constitution. This will make a major difference, she said, predicting that the pro-abortion camp will find it very difficult to rally that much support in the state.
According to an Emerson College poll published April 11, 57% of Florida voters believe the six-week pro-life law is too strict. According to the Pew Research Center, 56% of Florida adults believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Sugrue said the Florida amendment is “much more radical” than the other abortion proposals such as the one in Ohio and is “actually very, very broad.”
The amendment bans restrictions on abortion before viability, but late-term abortions would still be allowed if determined necessary by a health provider. According to Sugrue’s analysis of the amendment, it would allow abortion until birth in Florida because it doesn’t define what it means by necessary for one’s health and does not specify what type of health care providers are allowed to make that determination.
What the pro-life movement needs to win in Florida
Sugrue said the pro-life movement needs to prioritize communicating the truth about the radical nature of the amendment to the public.
“Messaging is going to be very important,” she said, adding that the “constant, faithful, and clear support” from the Catholic Church in Florida will be needed.
So far, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB) and Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Catholic, have both criticized the amendment.
In a statement shared with CNA on April 1, Michael Sheedy, FCCB executive director, said that the Florida bishops “will work hard to oppose this cruel and dangerous amendment and urge all Floridians to vote no.”
DeSantis, meanwhile, has called the amendment “very, very extreme” and said that voters will reject it once they figure out how radical it is.
According to Pritchard, there is already a coalition of pro-life groups formed to defeat the amendment. She said that “what’s going to be key to our success is the willingness of Gov. DeSantis to get in this fight.”
“We would hope that he would be vocal, continue to be vocal early and often, because that awareness of what this measure actually does is very important starting now rather than waiting until the last couple of weeks before the election,” she said.
But just as important as being vocally supportive, according to Pritchard, is for the governor to help with fundraising. In Ohio, the campaign in favor of the abortion amendment outraised the pro-life campaign by a large margin.
“We know the other side is going to easily pour millions upon millions into this, from George Soros to the abortion lobby and abortion industry,” Pritchard said. “So, the dollars will be as crucial as him [DeSantis] being willing to be a vocal advocate.”
With the help of the governor, Pritchard believes the pro-life movement can break its losing slump.
“Florida is the state where the red wave materialized in 2022. We were all hoping and expecting and praying for a red wave throughout the entire nation in those midterms, but that didn’t happen, except for in Florida, where Ron DeSantis won by double digits and took both houses of the Legislature,” she said. “We have reasons to be hopeful in that respect. At the same time, we have a lot of work to do.”