Dems vow to hold Trump accountable for 6-week abortion law about to go into effect in Florida

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center on Feb. 24, 2024, in National Harbor, Maryland. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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The Florida Democratic Party and the Joe Biden reelection campaign declared Tuesday that the groups are holding former President Donald Trump directly responsible for the erosion of abortion rights in Florida and across the country.

“Let me be very clear,” said Jasmine Burney-Clark, the Florida state director of the Biden-Harris campaign. “Donald Trump owns Florida’s abortion ban, and he owns every single thing that happens as a result.”

“Trump allies also have a plan to ban abortion nationally if he’s elected without ever going through Congress. They’d use what’s called the Comstock Act, a law from the 1800’s to ban medication abortion through executive action,” Burney-Clark said at a news conference Tuesday. “They’d also undue the FDA’s approval of medication abortion, which makes up 60% of abortion care nationwide.”

Trump, the presumptive nominee for president for the Republican Party, announced on Monday that his latest position on abortion rights is that it should be left up to the states to decide. But he also boasted in a video posted on Truth Social that he was “proudly the person responsible” for the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized a federal right to an abortion in 1973.

“Donald Trump did this, he said so yesterday,” said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried, who spoke at the news conference. “He bragged about being the one to overturn Roe v. Wade. Trump’s comments yesterday are confirmation that he is the architect behind the destruction of reproductive freedom in Florida, and across our nation.”

The situation is serious in Florida, with a six-week ban now primed to become the law in less than a month. Fried said it’s not just Trump but also U.S. Sen. Rick Scott who should be held accountable for what’s now happening in the Sunshine State regarding abortion rights.

“It’s one of the strictest bans in the country, which bans abortion before most women know that they are even pregnant,” Fried said of the new law. “The ban will go into effect alongside Florida’s 24-hour waiting period instituted by none other than Rick Scott, a requirement to make two doctor appointments before receiving treatment. It is a total ban. And the clearest example of government overreach in what is a very personal medical decision between women, their doctors and their families.”

Then-Gov. Rick Scott signed into law in 2015 a measure that would require a 24-hour waiting period before women can have an abortion. Due to litigation, the law has only been in effect since 2022.

So far left unsaid by Trump, a Florida resident, is if he supports the state’s six-week abortion ban, or would he vote for the abortion rights amendment on the ballot in November. Last September, Trump called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signing of the six-week ban “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

Fried was asked by a reporter during the news conference if the Florida Democratic Party would be collaborating with the Yes on Amendment 4 campaign when it comes to getting the amendment approved this fall in Florida.

“The coalition is broad, and that is where we are going to come into play is to make sure that we’re providing information, that we’re providing different access points for people to get that information, but it is two separate campaigns,” Fried.

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