Florida Supreme Court upholds six-week abortion ban

On Monday, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a six-week abortion ban could go into effect. Ordinance allows “one of the strictest and most far-reaching abortion bans in the country, set to come into force in 30 days.”

When Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, signed a 15-week abortion ban in 2022, nevertheless it was almost immediately challenged in court. The following April, DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban that suffered the identical fate because the yr before and was challenged in court.

According to a Supreme Court judge ruling this week, “The Florida Constitution guarantees “the right to be left alone and free from governmental intrusion into… private life.”… In this case, we’re asked to find out whether there may be a conflict between the rights protected by this provision and the rights of a recently amended statute that shortens the period during which a physician can perform an abortion.”

“[W]We conclude that in the light of the Privacy Clause there are no grounds to invalidate the statute. In doing so, we depart from our prior decisions in which, based on reasoning rejected by the United States Supreme Court, we held that the Privacy Clause guaranteed the right to an abortion until the end of the second trimester.” opinion uninterrupted.

When Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, signed a 15-week abortion ban in 2022, nevertheless it was almost immediately challenged in court. The following April, DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban that suffered the identical fate because the yr before and was challenged in court, in keeping with NBC News.

This is a departure from 34 years of the past precedent“after eliminating two-thirds of the time – 18 weeks – the woman must decide whether to have an abortion.”

Justice Jorge Labarga, the lone dissenter within the 6-1 decision, wrote a 30-page text riotcountering: “I am confident that in 1980 (when voters approved the privacy provision at issue as a stand-alone amendment) a Florida voter would have understood that the proposed privacy amendment included broad protections for abortion.”

Labarga wrote that there may be “substantial evidence that overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that society understands the right to privacy to include the right to abortion…the right to privacy.”

In a separate decision that was issued at the identical time, the justices also ruled by a 4-3 vote that voters could speak through the polls ballots later this yr and vote on a constitutional amendment that will guarantee access to abortion within the state.

“By 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, to one with restrictive rules similar to those in neighboring states.” New York Times reports.