According to the Associated Press, with 98% of the polls reporting, only 57% of voters voted in favor of the amendment, which needed to pass a 60% threshold.
The proposed constitutional amendment, spearheaded by the political committee Floridians Protecting Freedom, would have guaranteed the right to abortion up to viability—equal to about 24 weeks of pregnancy—and would have limited anti-abortion Florida legislators from restricting abortion access any further.
The defeat of the measure is a massive blow to an effort by abortion rights advocates to limit government interference in abortion and to restore abortion rights in Florida to where they had been before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade in 2022. Florida’s Amendment 4, titled ‘Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,’ needed the support of at least 60% of voters in order to pass.
Polling for Amendment 4 showed support slipping in the months before the election, as opposition campaigns from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his administration, as well as a motley crew of anti-abortion groups spread misinformation about the amendment and attempted to frame its supporters as liars.
Altogether, advocates knocked on thousands of doors in Florida to get out the vote for Amendment 4, sent texts, and made hundreds of thousands of calls. Student groups mobilized young voters on college and university campuses, men mobilized other men, and while many of key organizations behind Amendment 4—such as Planned Parenthood and the labor union SEIU—skew liberal, the campaign also reached across party lines and managed to secure the support of some Republicans and independent voters as well with their libertarian, ‘keep government out of my doctor’s office’ messaging.
The ballot summary for Amendment 4 reads in part 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.” It does not affect a parental notification requirement in the Florida Constitution for minors seeking abortion care.
Abortion rights were on the ballot in 10 states this November, including Florida, but Florida’s measure may have been the most highly-watched. Students for Life Action, a national anti-abortion advocacy organization, shared in an email this week that the group had “invested significant resources in Florida” in an effort to defeat Amendment 4.
The measure also faced an aggressive anti-abortion campaign from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration, which DeSantis weaponized—on the taxpayer’s dime—to threaten TV stations that aired pro-Amendment 4 ads with jail time and accuse the Yes on 4 campaign of ballot petition fraud. Nearly 1 million Floridians signed petitions in support of placing Amendment 4 on the ballot, according to the state Division of Elections Office, surpassing the 891,523 needed.
DeSantis himself toured the state in recent weeks with anti-abortion healthcare providers to spread misinformation about Amendment 4 and what it would do, if passed. Opponents argued, for instance, that Amendment 4 would gut a requirement under Florida law for minors to first obtain parental consent before getting an abortion (an untrue claim). They also argued it would allow women to get “late-term abortions” far into pregnancy—something that rarely happens, and is generally only performed in rare cases of life-threatening conditions or serious/fatal fetal abnormalities.
According to data from the CDC, less than 1% of abortions in the U.S. in 2021 occurred after 21 weeks. The vast majority of terminated pregnancies occur within the first 13 weeks. The American Civil Liberties Union described this ‘late-term abortion’ talking point from opponents as a “falsehood” intended “to stoke fear, shame and hate.”
Amendment supporters—including some conservatives—argued that the decision to terminate one’s pregnancy should be a decision made by a pregnant person and their doctor, not by politicians. Supporters also argued that Florida’s current abortion ban restricts access before many people even know they’re pregnant, and offers insufficient, largely inaccessible exceptions.
As DeSantis traveled the state with anti-abortion activists, a group of more than 850 doctors signed a letter last month in support of Amendment 4, describing Florida’s abortion ban as “dangerous.” The ban, they said, forces doctors into a position where they could be charged with a felony, lose their medical license, and face prison time for violations of the law. “We must choose between following an unyielding law and denying our patients essential medical care, or providing that care while risking loss of our licenses and even facing criminal charges,” the doctors wrote, in a letter distributed by Floridians Protecting Freedom’s Yes on 4 campaign.
Investigations by outlets such as ProPublica have identified preventable deaths in states with similarly restrictive abortion bans, like Georgia and Texas, where young women have died to delays in care. While opponents of Amendment 4 have called this medical malpractice, healthcare providers have shared that current exceptions to Florida’s ban—including to save the life of the mother—are “unworkable in practice leading to numerous cases of delays and denials of care for medical emergencies and severe fetal anomalies.”
This defeat for abortion rights advocates keeps in place a restrictive ban affecting millions of women of reproductive age in Florida and in other neighboring states that fully ban abortion or severely restrict it. The closest state to get an abortion outside of Florida is North Carolina—where abortion is banned at 12 weeks—or Virginia, where abortion is legal up to the third trimester.
Abortion bans disproportionately hurt pregnant people who are poor, uninsured, likely already have at least one kid, and who can’t afford to travel out of state to access abortion care. Nonprofit abortion funds that seek to help provide financial assistance for those who can’t afford to leave have warned they are facing a depletion in funds, despite seeing an influx in people coming to them for help.
According to new state data, the number of abortions reported in Florida in the first 10 months of 2024 is down nearly 20% compared to the same period last year. There are about 50 licensed clinics in Florida, currently, but with severe restrictions on abortion access likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future, the state could see closures seen in other states with similarly restrictive bans.
As Florida Politics reporter Jacob Ogles pointed out on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won his re-election to the Governor’s Office in 2022 with just 59.4% of the vote in a low-turnout election. That means, if DeSantis were a constitutional amendment, he wouldn’t have passed either.
Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Related Stories
Florida abortion funds carry on despite Amendment 4 loss
This article appears in Oct 31 – Nov 6, 2024.