DeSantis Slams Biden for Pushing Abortion Amendment in Florida

Then Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to his supporters after finding out the 2024 Iowa caucuses results at the Sheraton Hotel in West Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 15, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized President Joe Biden’s promotion of an abortion amendment in Florida, noting that it was written in a manner “intentionally designed to deceive voters.”

“I hear that Joe Biden is on his way to Florida this afternoon, and all I can say is this is a guy who has intentionally opened the borders of this country and caused great harm,” Mr. DeSantis said during an April 23 press conference in Naples.

He continued: “His policies have caused families to suffer with higher prices and higher interest rates. And now he’s coming down to try to support a constitutional amendment that will mandate abortion up until the moment of birth, that will eliminate parental consent for minors, and that is written in a way that is intentionally designed to deceive voters.

“So all I can tell you is Floridians are not buying what Joe Biden is selling, and in November, we’re going to play an instrumental role in sending him back to Delaware where he belongs.”

The pro-abortion amendment referred to by Mr. DeSantis will appear on ballots in November as Amendment 4, and voters can cast their votes on the issue.

The amendment states 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.”

The Florida governor’s comments came before President Biden made a campaign stop in Tampa, Florida, on April 23 at the Hillsborough Community College, where he asked supporters to vote for Amendment 4.

The president also asked the audience to vote for Democrats in the November election to bring back Roe v. Wade as the “law of the land.” He blamed former President Donald Trump for having “stripped the right away from women in America.”

The president and other speakers at the venue claimed that President Trump and his allies will push to impose a federal abortion ban if they come to power.

The former president has clarified on several occasions that he does not support a federal abortion ban and that the issue should be left to the states.

Katie Daniel, state policy director of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization, criticized President Biden’s abortion push during his Florida visit.

“Far-left Democrats are targeting Florida in a desperate attempt to rally their base and rescue the failed Biden-Harris administration. The one strategy they think will save them in November is to lie and fearmonger about abortion and pro-life laws. This is the time for Floridians to stand up and prove them wrong,” Ms. Daniel said in a statement.

“We Floridians have compassionate hearts for moms and babies. That’s why over six in 10 voters supported the Heartbeat Protection Act to safeguard 50,000 babies a year from abortion when their hearts are beating, and at the same time we provided a record $25 million in annual funding for pregnancy resource centers that serve both women and children by offering a lifeline to moms in need of support,” she added.

Court Upholds Abortion Ban

President Biden’s Florida visit came as the state Supreme Court issued a judgment earlier this month upholding Florida’s 15-week limit on abortion.

Mr. DeSantis signed the 15-week abortion ban in 2022, which was immediately legally challenged by affiliates of Planned Parenthood.

In its April 1 ruling, justices of the Supreme Court of Florida said that abortion rights are not protected under the state’s Privacy Clause. The clause guarantees “the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into … private life.”

“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,” the opinion reads. “We conclude there is no basis under the Privacy Clause to invalidate” the 15-week abortion ban.

Last year, Mr. DeSantis signed into law the Heartbeat Protection Act, which bans abortions after six weeks. However, the Act never came into effect as the 15-week ban was pending in the courts.

In the ruling, the justices clarified that since the court has upheld the 15-week ban, the “six-week ban will take effect in thirty days.”

The court also allowed Amendment 4 to proceed. In October 2023, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a brief in the state Supreme Court, raising concerns about the amendment.

The amendment would “lay ticking time bombs that will enable abortion proponents later to argue that the amendment has a much broader meaning than voters would ever have thought,” she wrote. “It conveys that the amendment would continue to allow the Legislature to restrict abortion after ‘viability.’”

However, the attorney general argued that the term “viability” is very vague and open to interpretations.

“Some voters will read ‘viability’ as Roe and Casey used the term—as referring to a baby ‘potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb.’ Others will understand ‘viability’ in the more traditional clinical sense—as referring to a pregnancy that, but for an abortion or other misfortune, will result in the child’s live birth,” she wrote.

“This ambiguity is no small interpretive quibble; ‘viability’ in the Roe/Casey sense occurs much later than in the traditional clinical sense. And polling shows that the stage of pregnancy at which abortion becomes illegal is crucial to whether voters approve of particular restrictions on abortion.”

Amendment 4 requires the support of 60 percent of voters in order to pass. And in the event it passes in November, provisions of the amendment will supersede the six-week abortion ban.