Florida groups push to get abortion rights into state's constitution [again]

[In It to Win It]

Florida groups push to get abortion rights into state’s constitution

ORLANDO, Fla. — Abortion rights groups are working to get a referendum on the 2024 ballot that would enshrine access to abortion in the Florida Constitution, a measure designed to sidestep Republican control of the issue in Tallahassee.

Recent votes in Republican-leaning states have shown that there are sizable majorities who will back abortion rights if they are put to a vote of the people.

But more money needs to be raised, and time is running out if the Florida activists want to get the nearly 900,000 valid signatures needed by the Feb. 1 deadline. And all the while, a conservative state Supreme Court could torpedo the campaign at any time.

“The Florida Legislature has not made it easy for groups to qualify measures for the ballot,” said Daniel A. Smith, the political science chair at the University of Florida. “And that is quite intentional.”

The proposed amendment, from the group Floridians Protecting Freedom, 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 campaign has already gathered about 600,000 of the 891,523 signatures needed to make the 2024 ballot, she said.

But only about 300,000 of them have been validated by the state so far, and experts said many more signatures than the official threshold need to be gathered to offset ones that don’t pass muster.