A group trying to enshrine abortion access in Florida’s state constitution amassed enough petition signatures to get its amendment on the 2024 ballot.
Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF) announced it currently has 911,169 signatures, verified by the Florida Division of Elections. The group needed 891,523 petitions to get the proposed amendment on the official ballot, which is equal to 8 percent of the total number of votes cast in Florida during the previous presidential election.
However, the amendment still requires informing a parent or guardian before a minor receives an abortion in the state.
The proposed amendment must receive more than 60 percent of the vote to pass and enshrine abortion access in Florida’s state constitution. If voters approve of the initiative, Florida will become the eighth state to approve abortion access at the polls following the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Voters in Ohio approved of a similar ballot initiative in November 2023, as only a simple majority of more than 50 percent of voters was required to enshrine abortion access in its state constitution.
Arizona and Missouri are expected to vote on their own abortion-access initiatives later this year.
Voters in Kentucky rejected an attempt to enshrine an abortion ban in the state constitution in 2022, while Kansas voters voted against a similar measure the same year.
“The fact that we only launched our campaign eight months ago and we’ve already reached our petition goal speaks to the unprecedented support and momentum there is to get politicians out of our private lives and health care decisions,” FPF’s campaign director Lauren Brenzel said in a news release.
Pro-Life Response
Andrew Shirvell, the founder of Florida Voice for the Unborn—a pro-life grassroots lobbying group—was disappointed by the number of voters backing the proposed amendment.“So we expect probably [by Feb. 1], they'll have over a million signatures validated. So it’s upsetting. It’s sad in a way because the pro-life movement here in Florida, led by Florida Voice For the Unborn, has been working so hard to thwart the pro-abortion petition gathering efforts. And we’ve done our best on a limited budget with all volunteers,” he said.
The Florida State Supreme Court will review oral arguments for and against the amendment on Feb. 7. The court has until April 1 to make a ruling, which will decide if it reaches the November ballot.
“If this challenge fails, there’s really nothing else that any of us can do. We can’t bring any lawsuits or anything to stop it from being on the ballot. So, this is the legal fight. So that’s what we’re focused on,” Mr. Shirvell said.
He believes the actions in other states have bolstered efforts to enshrine abortion access in Florida’s constitution.
“I think, unfortunately, it was the Ohio victory that that boosted them. Otherwise, if they had lost in Ohio, I think the pro-abortion forces would have seen Florida as too much of a challenge.
“But this is really their crown jewel in their movement; they want to make Florida a permanent abortion destination state in the south, and [Ohio] in the Midwest, you know, so that’s their goal. So they’re going to spend whatever amount of money is necessary not only to get on the ballot but then to try to secure victory at the ballot box,” Mr. Shirvell added.
Since Ohio only has a threshold of more than 50 percent of voters required to amend its state constitution, he is confident that pro-life activists can prevent the amendment in Florida from reaching the 60 percent threshold needed to pass.
However, FPF previously announced that it had amassed a large number of petition signatures from conservative voters.
“With Republicans now way outnumbering Democrats [in Florida], in order for the pro-abortion referendum to win, they need to secure a large amount of Republican voters that will likely vote for whoever the Republican presidential candidate is.
“And also vote for maybe down ballot older Republican candidates as well in their districts, but yet, still will feel the need to vote ‘yes’ on this Democrat-backed referendum for enshrining abortion on demand into the state constitution. So that’s what they’re banking on,” Mr. Shirvell said.
Voter Turnout and the House of Representatives
There is also the question of voter turnout and how it could affect Florida’s congressional races and which party controls the House of Representatives in January 2025.Republican operatives have warned that having an abortion-access amendment on the ballot could drive more Democratic or left-leaning independents to the polls who might normally sit out other elections.
Another ballot initiative that could further complicate voter turnout in Florida is the proposed amendment for legalizing recreational marijuana, which is also awaiting review by the state Supreme Court.
Mr. Shirvell said the GOP needs to address these issues head-on.
“And so they’ve been paralyzed with their own internal problems. And that, in turn, is going to affect us down the line in terms of the general election because we lost a whole month in terms of fundraising, momentum, [and] recruiting good candidates. From our perspective, that’s their problem,” he said.
Mr. Shirvell said if the Republican presidential nominee—which is increasingly looking like President Donald Trump as he polls in the double digits ahead of Gov. Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley—wins Florida, while the abortion-access amendment passes, the “blame” will be “squarely put on the Republican Party of Florida.”
“If that happens, that would be on them because that can’t happen,” he said.
However, if 60 percent or more of Floridians vote for the amendment in November, Mr. Shirvell said the state legislature can still place their amendments on future ballots.
“So what I would suspect would happen is that we would see proposals in the legislature to kind of clamp back on that extreme amendment, and maybe not as an amendment protecting all unborn children from the moment of conception, but I would anticipate there would be a large ground swelling of support to propose an amendment to say ban abortion late in pregnancy. You know, maybe after 12 weeks, I can see things happening like that. But that’s all hypothetical,” he said.
