Florida Supreme Court upholds strict abortion bans while giving voters a say in November

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the state’s ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy but also ruled that a ballot initiative seeking to protect the procedure can go before voters in November.

In dual decisions released Monday, the conservative-leaning high court appeared to attempt to please both sides of the abortion debate: It upheld the GOP-led state’s bans on abortion while also giving voters a say in protecting the procedure in November.

The Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling on the ballot initiative could deliver a stunning blow to Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Republicans, who have passed strict abortion laws in recent years that ban the procedure at 15 weeks without exceptions for rape and incest and another six-week ban that hasn’t yet been implemented. That six-week ban will go into effect within 30 days of the high court’s ruling.

Those laws have signaled an end to Florida’s reputation as a safe haven for patients in the South who seek abortions. Thousands of patients from neighboring states with more restrictive laws — like Alabama and even as far as Texas — travel to Florida to get abortions.

But the high court’s decision also means that, if 60 percent voters approve a ballot measure in November, patients seeking to end their pregnancies will still be able to travel to Florida, the third-largest state in the country, to receive abortions.

House Speaker Paul Renner and other Florida Republicans quickly began framing the abortion rights amendment as “radical” and “extreme,” signaling how they plan to campaign against the initiative in the coming months.

“This amendment goes far, far beyond where most Floridians would land on the issue,” Renner said just minutes after the court issued its ruling.

Renner additionally contended that Floridians soon-to-be implemented ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy wasn’t as “restrictive” as other states since it does allow some exceptions such as for rape and incest.

Both Renner and Republican Party of Florida chair Evan Power said there would be an organized effort to challenge the amendment. Power vowed that the party — which has a substantial financial advantage over Democrats — “will fight to inform voters on the dangers of this amendment.”

Justices Renatha Francis, Jamie R. Grosshans and Meredith L. Sasso dissented with the majority opinion due to concerns that the impact of the amendment was far greater than what voters will be led to believe at the ballot box. The three women were appointed by DeSantis.

Jeremy Redfern, a spokesperson for the governor, said the female justices got the ruling right.

“We agree with the three women on the Court,” Redfern wrote in a statement. “This amendment is misleading and will confuse voters. The language hides the amendment's true purpose of mandating that abortions be permitted up to the time of birth.”

The effort to place abortion access on the ballot began after a large network of abortion rights and women’s rights groups banded together in April to form Floridians Protecting Freedom. The initiative known as Amendment 4, if approved, will allow abortion up to the point of viability, which is generally around 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

During a Monday news conference, Lauren Brenzel, director of the 'Yes on 4' campaign that supports the measure, said her grassroots network of supporters will fight the state’s tighter abortion bans.

“The fact is, we can never know what someone else is going through — we’re not in their shoes,” Brenzel said. “That’s why we must vote ‘yes’ on this amendment: to keep government out of our exam rooms and make sure Florida families and the doctors who treat them can make the decisions that are right for them.”

The high court justices appeared to favor placing the measure on the ballot during oral arguments that were held in early November. Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz told a lawyer from Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office that voters were smart enough to understand abortion.

The campaign also received a huge boost in November when Ohio voters approved a similar referendum that blocked abortion controls that had been tightened by the state’s GOP-led government.

At the same time, many expected that the state high court would end Florida’s position as an abortion haven in the South, due to DeSantis’ dramatic reshaping of the court into a conservative institution. The Republican governor appointed five of the seven justices, and several have ties to anti-abortion groups or legislation that sought to restrict the procedure.

The justices’ ruling upholding the abortion bans also allowed time for a rehearing.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to end federal protections under Roe v. Wade, roughly 4,000 pregnant people from out-of-state traveled to Florida for abortions from other states where the procedure is outlawed at almost any stage of pregnancy except for very narrow exceptions. It represented a nearly 40 percent surge in people from out-of-state getting abortions in Florida.

The Florida decision also comes during the 2024 election cycle, where abortion will play a major role. DeSantis, who signed the abortion restrictions into law, rarely highlighted the state bans while campaigning for president before he dropped out — even before anti-abortion crowds.

The country’s leading anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, also strongly criticized DeSantis when he wouldn’t support federal abortion restrictions during an interview over the summer with Megyn Kelly.

More broadly, anti-abortion groups have in the last two years deployed a wide range of tactics to keep abortion-rights proposals off the ballot, including pushing bills in statehouses that would make it harder to pass constitutional amendments, working with GOP attorneys general and secretaries of state to stymie the initiative process, and challenging the measures in court.

Those tactics have not succeeded in blocking a state referendum on abortion. Already this election cycle, the Missouri Supreme Court allowed a lower court decision to stand that deemed that ballot question language proposed by Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft was politically partisan. Ashcroft’s summary of the measure had said the proposal, which aims to protect abortion until viability, would lead to “dangerous and unregulated abortions until live birth.”

And the Montana Supreme Court ruled last month that proposed ballot language to protect abortion rights did not bundle multiple subjects together and that Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen overstepped his authority when he argued the measure was confusing and would conflict with other parts of the state Constitution.

The courts are only one tool anti-abortion rights groups are wielding. In Arizona, Missouri and South Dakota, they have also launched campaigns to dissuade voters from signing petitions to put abortion rights on the ballot, and groups in many states plan to challenge the validity of signatures once submitted later this year.

The lawsuit challenging the 15-week ban was backed by abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood. On Monday Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates used the court’s decision to uphold the law as a rallying cry for the amendment.

“The extraordinary groundswell of grassroots support Amendment 4 has received is no surprise to us,” Goodhue wrote. “Today’s decision paves the way for Florida voters to stop these ridiculous abortion bans once and for all.”

Gary Fineout, Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly contributed to this report.