DeSantis Believes Florida Abortion Amendment is Deceptive, Allow Procedure Up Til Birth

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) released a video directed toward Floridians on his personal social media account providing a rationale for voting no against Amendment 4 in the upcoming November election. The amendment would protect an abortion procedure in the Sunshine State up until viability – which is estimated between 20-24 weeks.

The amendment reads as follows:

“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. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

However, Gov. DeSantis argues this amendment would enshrine abortion privileges up until the moment of birth despite its wording.

“One, what does the amendment do? Well, it completely eliminates not just the Heartbeat Protection Act, but also the 15-week protections, and even it eliminates parental consent for minors with respect to abortion. That's something that is in our statutes. It's something that's very common sense. This amendment would eliminate that. And abortion would be the one thing that a minor could go behind their parents’ back and do without consent. Everything else in medical would require parental consent. They're taking this out. So it does eliminate an important parental right with this amendment,” said Gov. DeSantis.

“The other thing it does is it guarantees abortion all the way till the moment of birth. And it's written in a way to try to massage that but basically, if you have a 'healthcare provider' [who] says that there should be an abortion, then you can do it. It doesn't even require a physician,” DeSantis concluded.

The amendment requires 60 percent of the vote to enshrine the measure in Florida’s Constitution. A poll from May showed that 60 percent of Floridians would vote for Amendment 4 while 20 percent would vote no, and 19 percent haven’t made up their mind.

Should this polling from CBS News hold firm and just one percent of the undecideds vote for the measure, then it will become a part of the Constitution of Florida.