The Florida Supreme Court overturned decades of legal precedent on Monday in ruling that the state constitution’s privacy protections do not extend to abortion, effectively allowing a ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy.
But in a separate decision released at the same time, the justices allowed Florida voters to decide later this year on whether to expand abortion access. The court ruled, by a four to three margin, that a proposed constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to abortion “before viability,” usually around 24 weeks, could go on the November ballot.
The rulings encapsulated, in a single state on a single day, how the US has grappled with the abortion issue since the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade decision that recognised federal abortion rights in 1973.
The conservative-leaning court found by six to one that a 15-week abortion ban enacted in 2022 was constitutional. That ruling — in response to a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and several abortion providers — will allow a six-week ban enacted last year to take effect by May 1st.
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“Based on our analysis finding no clear right to abortion embodied within the Privacy Clause, Planned Parenthood cannot overcome the presumption of constitutionality and is unable to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the 15-week ban is unconstitutional,” Justice Jamie R. Grosshans wrote in the majority opinion.
In paving the way for the six-week ban, the court cemented the rapid transformation of Florida, once a destination for women seeking abortions in the American South, into a place with restrictive policies akin to those in surrounding states.
But allowing the ballot measure gave supporters of abortion rights a chance to continue their national campaign to preserve access to the procedure by giving voters the opportunity to directly weigh in on the issue. Ballot measures in favor of abortion rights have already succeeded in several states, including Ohio and Michigan.
“This is a historic day in the fight for abortion access in Florida,” said Lauren Brenzel, director for the Yes on 4 campaign that put forth the ballot measure. “No longer will decisions about abortion be left between politicians disconnected from the realities of everyday Floridians’ lives.”
Abortion rights groups in about 10 states are trying to put measures on the ballot to secure access; Florida is the largest of those states.
Historically, many women from Southern states with tighter restrictions on abortion have traveled to Florida for the procedure. They will now have to seek abortions much farther away, perhaps in Virginia or Washington, D.C. Few women realise that they are pregnant at six weeks, and backers of abortion rights say the stricter ban, once effective, will amount to a near-total prohibition.
In its ruling allowing the six-week ban to take effect, a majority of the justices argued that past abortion cases had been wrongly decided based on an overly broad interpretation of the state constitution’s privacy clause — an argument similar to the one the US Supreme Court made in overturning Roe v Wade.
A majority of the justices said that voters did not understand the privacy clause to extend to abortion when they added it to the state constitution in 1980, citing among other things the public and legislative debate at the time.
Neither of Monday’s rulings was a surprise: The seven-member court has moved to the right politically, with Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, appointing four of them. But while the court had a Monday deadline to rule on the abortion measure, it faced no similar timeline to rule on the abortion ban.
By issuing both rulings on the same day, the court gave abortion opponents a sought-after decision narrowing privacy protections. But by also allowing a ballot measure to expand abortion access, it gave those groups little time to celebrate.
Immediately after the court ruled, opponents and proponents of the ballot measure accused the other side of being extreme, previewing their likely campaign messages.
Republican lawmakers who supported the 15-week and six-week abortion bans argued that the ballot measure would allow abortions late in pregnancy. Abortions after 21 weeks are extremely rare and usually follow severe medical diagnoses.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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