Florida Group Hopes to Use Ruling Calling Embryos ‘Children’ to Derail Abortion Ballot Measure
A Christian legal firm swooped in with a new attack on Amendment 4, courtesy of a wild Alabama ruling.
Supremecourt.flcourts.gov AbortionPolitics
Last week’s chilling Alabama Supreme Court ruling is already reverberating beyond the state’s borders, and beyond IVF. The Daily Beast reported that a conservative group in Florida has asked the state Supreme Court there to consider the Alabama decision—which classified fertilized embryos intended for IVF as “children”—before it rules on a pending ballot measure that would codify abortion rights.
Floridians Protecting Freedom is behind a campaign to enshrine the right to abortion until fetal viability in the state constitution, a ballot measure known as Amendment 4. (The state currently has a 15-week ban in place, but the state Supreme Court could soon let a 6-week trigger ban take effect.) The group hit the number of required signatures to get the measure on the ballot, but Florida law includes an unusual step, in which the Supreme Court has to determine if language including the ballot summary is clear enough for voters. At a hearing earlier this month, lawyers for state Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) asked the court to throw out Amendment 4 because they claim voters don’t know what “viability” means.