Backers say Florida abortion ballot initiative on track ahead of signature deadline

A coalition of abortion rights groups in Florida says it is close to collecting enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot next year that would protect abortion. 

By the end of the month, Floridians Protecting Freedom said it will have submitted 1.4 million signatures to state officials, more than enough to qualify ahead of the Feb. 1 deadline to get signatures submitted and verified. 

According to the Florida Division of Elections, 753,771 valid signatures have been submitted so far, and more are in the verification process. The amendment needs 891,523 to qualify for the ballot.  

If the measure does get to the ballot, it would need 60 percent of the votes to pass. 

The group’s campaign director, Lauren Brenzel, said they are doing a final push and asking everyone who has not yet signed and submitted their petition to get them into the campaign by Friday. 

“I think that the petition collection has been more successful than we could have imagined at the onset of this campaign. And may we have seen just overwhelming support from Floridians across different parties with different voting histories,” Brenzel said.  

The Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition, one of the groups affiliated with the ballot campaign, said it estimated about 150,000 people who’ve signed the petition are Republican voters. 

“We’ve heard from all over the state how excited people are to sign this because the reality is they want to be able to vote on it because they don’t want politicians interfering in their private medical decisions,” Brenzel said. 

Florida is one of a handful of red and purple states where groups are pushing to get measures on the ballot in 2024 that would protect access to abortion, following a streak of wins for similar measures in Kansas and Ohio. 

Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks, but the state Supreme Court is poised to rule any day on a lawsuit challenging the ban. If it is upheld, a six-week ban that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law earlier this year would automatically take effect.   

But no matter how many signatures the group collects, the conservative state Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether the question will get in front of voters.  

While other states allow ballot measures with just a signature requirement, Florida’s Supreme Court acts as a gatekeeper and reviews proposed initiatives to determine if the wording is clear and is limited to single subjects. 

Both sides have requested oral arguments, and the court has to rule on the language by April 1. 

Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) is asking the court to declare the ballot language is invalid because the wording is confusing.  

The amendment would bar laws that penalize or restrict abortion “before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” 

Moody objected to the word “viability,” arguing it can have more than one meaning and that backers will push for even looser abortion rules.  

In a brief filed last month, Moody wrote the amendment’s language would give health providers the power to decide both what constitutes “viability” of a pregnancy and whether the “health” of the pregnant person justified a late-term abortion. 

She said the wording was an attempt to “hoodwink” voters.  

Brenzel said Moody’s opposition was politically motivated and noted the definition of viability has been set in Florida statutes as well as state and U.S. Supreme Court case law. Since the term has been so well established, its definition doesn’t need to be included in the referendum. 

Brenzel said the specter of a six-week ban makes the ballot measure even more important and pointed to the recent case in Texas where a pregnant woman whose fetus had a fatal condition was denied an abortion. 

“I think we’ll continue to see some majorly upsetting stories,” Brenzel said. “We’ve had women who have experienced medical emergencies who’ve been forced to travel out of state and that’s because providers are afraid to give care in Florida right now. Even in medically necessary situations, they may feel a real chilling effect.”