Commentary: Proposed abortion amendment is deceptive and extreme
By: Dr. Mary J. O’Sullivan
Two recent Sun Sentinel editorials criticized Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody for arguing before the Florida Supreme Court that the ballot language of a proposed constitutional amendment regarding abortion is deceptive to voters. Moody’s concerns are well-founded.
Here’s the ballot language in question:
Title: Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion
Summary: 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.
Many voters who read this would be surprised to learn that the summary’s statement that abortions could only occur “before viability” is a false assurance, because the amendment provides no definition or standard for viability. Rather, the amendment lets any “healthcare provider” determine if the baby is viable. This “healthcare provider” would also determine if the expectant mother has a “health” concern significant enough to allow a late-term abortion, right up to the moment of birth.
Voters would also be surprised that under the amendment, this “healthcare provider” does not have to be a doctor or have relevant medical expertise. That’s because the amendment doesn’t define the term, and depending on which Florida statute you read, health care providers include anything from podiatrists, optometrists, chiropractors and nurses to physical trainers and acupuncturists.
Most voters would be equally surprised to learn that abortion clinics are also “health care providers” under Florida law, and that therefore, under this amendment, even nonmedical staff members of an abortion clinic could decide if the baby is viable, and if a health concern — physical or mental, regardless of severity — rises to the degree that a late-term abortion could be performed. The amendment provides no definitions, no objective criteria and no scientific basis for when, where or if an abortion would be allowed, and it prohibits the state from providing clarity.
The ballot language gives another false assurance — that parents would remain involved in deciding if their minor daughter should have an abortion. But this only allows for parental notification; it rescinds parental consent laws currently in place.
The ballot language fails to apprise voters that all Florida laws that regulate abortion would likely be nullified, including laws that almost everyone supports, whether they consider themselves to be pro-life or pro-choice. The Florida Supreme Court struck down previous amendments that failed to advise voters how the amendment affects the legal status quo, and amendments that “hide the ball” as to what they would do. The abortion amendment, whose own lawyer admitted to justices that it was “sweeping,” fails both tests.
And what does this extreme abortion amendment actually do?
It would allow full-term abortion for any age without parental consent in Florida. Voters deserve to know this, and the ballot language fails to tell them. That’s why this amendment “flies under false colors” — another reason courts have rejected previous amendments. That may be why the amendment’s lawyer sidestepped the question when asked by one justice whether the purpose of the amendment was to allow “abortion without restriction for the entire nine months of pregnancy.”
The editorials don’t mention that the only reason this issue is before the court is that its sponsor spent more than $15 million on out-of-state petition gathering firms — primarily bankrolled by a group whose views on abortion are so extreme that it once lobbied against a Florida law to ensure medical treatment in the rare instances when a baby is born alive during an abortion.
Contrary to the Sun Sentinel’s editorials, the Supreme Court would break decades of precedent if it allows this deceptive and extreme abortion amendment on the ballot.
Dr. Mary J. O’Sullivan is professor emeritus, and former director of maternal fetal medicine at the University of Miami. Since retirement, she is medical director of the Heartbeat of Miami and the Archdiocese of Miami Pregnancy Counselling Centers, and serves on the board of directors of Mater Filius, a home for pregnant woman and their children who have nowhere to live.