Florida Voters Will Get to Vote on Hyper-Restrictive Abortion Ban in November
Floridians will be able to vote on abortion protections this fall, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Monday—a win celebrated by the state’s Democrats despite the court, in a separate case, also paving the way for a law to take effect that will ban all abortions after six weeks.
That six-week abortion ban, passed by Florida’s Republican-majority legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year, will go into effect on May 1. That measure can be undone by voters come November, however.
The court’s decision is expected to reverberate across Florida and the southeast. A privacy protection clause in the Florida constitution had allowed the Sunshine State to enjoy abortion access up to 15 weeks despite DeSantis being at the helm—access that women relied upon in nearby states like Alabama and Mississippi, where abortion is outright banned, and in Georgia and South Carolina, which have laws similar to Florida’s soon-to-be-active six-week ban.