Florida’s six-week abortion ban: Democrats want voters to hold Republicans responsible

Anthony Man, Abigail Hasebroock, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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With just hours left before Florida implements its strict new law banning almost all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, Democrats are working overtime to make sure voters know who they should hold responsible: Republicans.

“Wednesday is going to mark the start of a dark, life-threatening chapter for women in Florida and across the South,” U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, said Monday. “It’s when Florida’s new six-week abortion ban passed by some Tallahassee politicians takes effect.”

“Women’s lives are at risk and Florida Democrats will continue to hold Republicans accountable for this dangerous ban from now to November,” state Democratic Chair Nikki Fried said last week in another news conference. “As Republicans who created this problem here in our state and across our country, they will have blood on their hands as we are dealing with the health care crisis that they created. Women will die.”

Fried vowed that Republicans would have to “defend their position every single day from now until November.”

Her position reflects most Democratic elected officials and party leaders who view the new restrictions as morally wrong, a threat to women’s health, and government interference in what should be decisions between a pregnant woman and her doctor.

They’re wrong, said Tami Donnally, former longtime vice chair of the Palm Beach County Republican Party and a candidate in the August primary for the post of state Republican committeewoman.

“I believe and have always believed that life begins at conception,” Donnally said in a phone interview. “I believe it’ll be a light day for the ones who have the right to life and will get to live. It will be a bright day for them.”

Like most Republican elected officials and party leaders, she views the new restrictions as a moral imperative to reduce the number of abortions, which she regards as ending a human life.

Beyond the ethical and medical considerations, there are significant political implications of the new law in Florida — and beyond.

Six-week ban

The 2002 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which for decades had provided constitutional protection for abortion, came about because of former President Donald Trump’s nomination of three anti-abortion justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. And the overturning of Roe allowed Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republicans who control the Florida Legislature to pass the state law that goes into effect on Wednesday.

The new law bans virtually all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, which Frankel said is “a near total ban” because many women are not even aware they are pregnant until after six weeks.

Frankel warned of a “cruel summer ahead.” Florida was the last remaining option in the southeast U.S. as a place women could obtain abortions. “On Wednesday, access to legal abortion is effectively eliminated in the south,” she said standing next to a map showing the states with strict abortion restrictions.

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Democratic efforts

Democrats are decrying the law daily, talking about Republicans’ positions and, like Fried, warning of political repercussions. Others, like Frankel, are championing the proposed amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida Constitution.

Frankel, whose West Palm Beach news conference was arranged by her official government office, said the issue “is not political, this is not a Republican versus Democrat. This is about women having the freedom to make their own health care decisions that affect their families and their future.”

Also on Monday, former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, sent a mobile billboard to U.S. Sen. Rick Scott’s hometown of Naples and began running a Spanish-language digital ad to highlight his opposition to abortion rights.

Mucarsel-Powel has made the issue a central theme of her candidacy, traveling the state in a “Florida Freedom Tour.” Surrogates held events in West Palm Beach on Thursday, Orlando on Friday and have one planned for Tallahassee on Tuesday to talk about the Republican senator and abortion.

On Tuesday, Fried and chairs from three other states’ Democratic parties are holding a news conference to highlight Florida’s new law and state Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book of Broward is holding her own news conference on the issue.

And eight days before the ban’s effective date, President Joe Biden traveled to Tampa to talk about abortion rights. On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris brings her “Fight For Reproductive Freedoms” tour to Jacksonville.

Fran Sachs, the former president of Emergency Medical Assistance Inc., a local abortion fund, appeared with Frankel and described her experience with a “much-wanted pregnancy” that she said had to be terminated because of a severe fetal abnormality.

“I was at 12 weeks at that point,” she said during the new conference. “If that would happen to me today, I would have to fly out of state to get the care that I needed. And it’s not tenable.”

The fund helps people who are unable to pay for abortions, helps people get appointments in other states and pays some transportation, lodging and food.

Jeffrey Litt, a Jupiter obstetrician-gynecologist, said the six-week ban will prevent treatment of many medical conditions, including “early miscarriages, pregnancies in unknown locations like tubal pregnancies, and second trimester complications.”

Ultimately, he said, “Women will die in some circumstances.”

Republican view

Kevin Neal, chair of the Palm Beach Republican Party, said Democrats are trying to distract voters.

“It seems like the Democrats are trying to make this election about one issue in an effort to shift voters’ focus away from their failed policies related to the economy, inflation, and the southern border among others,” Neal said via text, adding he doesn’t expect Republicans to suffer in November.

“Florida is thriving under Republican leadership and it is now the second largest red state in the U.S., where Republicans now have an over 900,000-registered voter advantage. We are anticipating a very strong Republican turnout at the polls in November as voters show their support for President Trump and our full slate of Republican candidates,” Neal said.

Tewannah Aman, executive director of Broward Right to Life, said in a phone interview that Democrats are desperate to counter what she sees as widespread public dissatisfaction with Biden on issues such as the southern U.S. border, the economy, protests at college campuses and “the lack of law and order.”

Abortion-rights advocates aren’t the only people planning for what happens on Wednesday. Aman said churches and abortion opponents would provide “counseling, material assistance, housing, and hope to women in unplanned pregnancies.”

David Donnally, senior pastor and president of Legacy Church Ministries in Lake Worth Beach, Palm Beach County coordinator for the Christian Family Coalition and Tami Donnally’s husband, said the six-week restriction “might” hurt the Republican Party. “I’m not a prophet in that sense where I’m going to tell you the future, but I understand that’s what they’re saying.”

He said that requires messaging to voters from the law’s supporters. “That’s why the Christian Family Coalition and people like me and other conservatives have to say, ‘Listen. We’re not trying to punish you or be mean to you but protect the most innocent among us, which is a baby. And they have no voice.'”

Will it work?

Florida Democrats hope voters angry about abortion restrictions will help them reverse some of their political losses in recent years.

Kevin Wagner, a political scientist at Florida Atlantic University, said abortion “certainly is a motivating issue for a significant portion of the Democratic base. Especially in a state like Florida, where turnout has not been great, you can see where it makes sense to talk about this issue as way to motivate their voters.”

So far, Wagner said ballot questions similar to the one Florida voters will decide on this fall haven’t shown clear effects for candidates at the top of the ticket and hasn’t produced a sea change in states’ political identities. But, he added, there are some indications that support for abortion rights has helped some candidates for lower office.

“Democrats in Florida have to find a way to convince voters that they need to come out and vote, and this is certainly one significant way to do that. It can’t be the only way, but it makes sense that they’re vocal on this issue, because it does resonate with a good number of Florida voters across the political spectrum,” Wagner said.

A Monmouth University national poll released Monday found 33% of voters said abortion would determine how they vote in the presidential race, slightly behind inflation at 38% and economic growth and jobs at 37%. Immigration was cited by 33%.

Abortion was the top issue for Democrats at 44%, and cited by 26% of Republicans, 28% of independents, 38% of women, and 27% of men.

A nationwide Quinnipiac University poll released last week found 34% of voters think abortion should be legal in all cases and 32% said it should be legal in most cases. The poll found 22% said it should be illegal in most cases, and 4% said it should be illegal in all cases.

Presidential politics

Although Democrats publicly profess that they hope Biden wins the state, there isn’t — so far — evidence that they have a chance to win the 30 electoral votes in increasingly Republican Florida.

Biden and Harris have a somewhat different mission than state Democrats. For the presidential ticket, it’s politically useful for them to use Florida as an illustration of what happens when Republicans have power, hoping to show the rest of the country why they should vote to reelect the president, and why they should be afraid of another Trump presidency.

The visits can “highlight a more national story that they can pitch to other states, potentially ones where the Democrats have a stronger chance of winning,” Wagner said.

It also helps keep the Biden campaign alive in case circumstances change. “I think the president would like to put some pressure on the state of Florida to see in the upcoming months they can close the gap in some of the polling to make Florida a little more competitive.”

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Post.news.