Florida’s abortion rights amendment just failed – Mother Jones

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking with doctors, holds a news conference to oppose the Fourth Amendment, which constitutionally protects access to abortion in the state.Paul Hennessy/Sopa/Zuma

Florida Six Week Course The abortion ban will remain the law of the land after a constitutional amendment on abortion rights failed Tuesday night.

With 91 percent of the vote counted as of 9:20 p.m., Florida’s support for Amendment 4 hovered around 57 percent, below the 60 percent threshold needed for passage, according to the Associated Press. The amendment would protect the right to abortion until fetal viability or approximately 24 weeks of pregnancy, as well as after fetal viability if a health care provider determines that the procedure is necessary to preserve the health of the patient.

The failure of the amendment is not simply a loss of political momentum after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision in 2022; It’s a major victory for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who used the power of his office to kill the measure. “A bipartisan group of voters sent a clear message to the Florida Legislature today,” a spokesman for Floridians Defending Freedom, the campaign behind the amendment, said in a livestream Tuesday evening. Is this a message to legislators? “Lift the ban.”

DeSantis declared victory Minutes after the final polls closed at 8 p.m., “Amendment 4 failed,” he wrote in a post on X. More Floridians voted for Amendment 4 in 2022 than for DeSantis.

Abortion rights supporters spent more in Florida– more than $75 million – than any other state with similar measures are on the ballot. Despite popular support for abortion rights In the state, the ballot measure faces an uphill battle to win in many ways.

Clearly, he needed 60 percent support, more than the simple majority needed to pass pro-life legislation in red states like OhioKansas and Kentucky. But the DeSantis administration also challenged this measure in unprecedented waysincluding by threatening television stations that broadcast advertisements in support of the amendments, releasing massive report weeks before the election, accusing the Florida organization Defending Freedom of “widespread election fraud” and using government agency website as a virtual billboard oppose the amendment.

From the date of entry into force in MayFlorida’s six-week abortion ban has upended access to the procedure in the South. Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Kentucky have near-total abortion bans, while Georgia and South Carolina have six-week bans. Number of abortions in Florida fell by 30 percent in the first two months of the ban, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The defeat of Amendment 4 marks the first defeat of a state’s abortion rights amendment since Dobbs. Voters in seven states passed pro-life legislation, and voters in nine other states have similar measures on their ballots.