The bill was filed shortly after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate who previously said he was “proud” to have signed into law a more restrictive six-week abortion limit in April, falsely claimed on TV that state law doesn’t currently allow for it.
“We have no criminal penalties, the penalties are for the physician. … That is for the providers, it’s not for the women,” DeSantis told CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell about Florida’s abortion law.
Senate Democratic leader Lauren Book of Broward County, daring Republicans to contradict the move, filed a bill Friday for consideration during the 2024 state legislative session, beginning Jan. 9, 2024, that would affirm DeSantis’ statement.
The bill filed (SB 34) would amend Florida law to specify that a “pregnant woman” seeking to terminate her pregnancy would not be subject to criminal penalties for getting an abortion.
Under current law, there is a third-degree felony penalty charge for “any person who willfully performs or actively participates in a termination of pregnancy” past 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Cases of pregnancy due to rape or incest are not exempted under the law — a detail that Sen. Book, herself a child sexual abuse survivor, frequently criticizes. Book, Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried, and other abortion rights supporters were arrested earlier this year in Tallahassee while peacefully protesting abortion restrictions.
“The imprisonment of women, girls, sexual assault survivors, and their doctors through dangerous abortion bans is cruel and anti-freedom,” Sen. Book said in a statement Friday. “The Governor has said ‘that will not happen in Florida’ — but we’re not just going to take his word for it, we’re fighting to ensure it.”
Over the last year, more people have been traveling to Florida to get abortions, after the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade prompted neighboring states to severely restrict or ban abortion. Florida is a key access point for not just Floridians seeking abortion care, but also more broadly for residents of the Southern United States.
At least one Florida abortion fund, based in the Tampa Bay region, is struggling to keep up with increased demand for financial assistance and practical support.
Florida Republicans in the state legislature, however, have with their votes on abortion legislation already disregarded any concern over criminalizing pregnant people who seek abortion.
With a sizable majority in the state legislature, far outnumbering Democrats, most of the state GOP approved Florida’s current 15-week limit last year, and gave the OK to a six-week limit this April, which has not gone into effect. Whether that does go into effect depends upon a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court (packed with conservative justices) in a challenge to the 15-week law. That challenge is ongoing, but a ruling is expected to come within a few months' time.
In her announcement of the bill filing, Sen. Book uplifted other efforts to protect and bolster abortion access in Florida — for example, an ongoing, multimillion-dollar campaign by abortion rights advocates to get a constitutional amendment limiting government interference in abortion on the 2024 state ballot.
The group pushing for the ballot initiative, Floridians Protecting Freedom, has already collected more than 700,000 signatures from Florida voters in support of the ballot question, according to Book. Nearly 300,000 have been verified, out of at least 891,523 needed by Feb. 1, 2024.
Updated 9/20/23 to clarify that anchor Norah O'Donnell works for CBS News, not NBC as previously stated.
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