The pro-abortion coalition “Floridians Protecting Freedom” reported that since its formation in April it has collected about $4.719 million in its campaign to add an amendment to the state Constitution that would require that “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.”
In its newly filed report to the Florida Department of State’s Division of Election, the organization reported that as the end of June it had spent almost $4.59 million, “including about $2.52 million in June,” News Service of Florida reported. “Most of the June spending went to petition-gathering efforts.”
Not surprisingly, “large donors in June included Planned Parenthood organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.”
Floridians Protecting Freedom needs to “submit at least 891,523 valid petition signatures to the state by Feb. 1,” according to News Service of Florida. “If the measure reaches the 2024 ballot, it would need support from at least 60 percent.”
Meanwhile, in an order posted last Friday, the Florida Supreme Court scheduled oral arguments for September 8 to address the constitutionality of the state’s law protecting unborn children after 15 weeks. “If the Supreme Court finds in the 15-week case that the privacy clause [in the state constitution] does not protect abortion rights, it would effectively allow the state to move forward with the six-week limit”–The Heartbeat Protection Act–which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on April 14, according to the Miami Herald.
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The court has allowed the state to enforce the 15-week law pending the outcome of the case. The case is Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida v. Florida.
The protective six-week Heartbeat law was supposed to take effect on June 1. The vast majority of these abortions are performed on healthy babies of healthy mothers who are conceived consensually, and half of these elective abortions take place after 6 weeks—after the baby has a beating heart.
“But first, the state’s top court must decide if the ‘Fetal Protection Act,’ which passed in 2022, violates the right to privacy enshrined in the Florida Constitution,” according to Rachel Tucker.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
