Florida’s GOP-controlled Senate passed a bill on Thursday that would ban abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or human trafficking. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has pledged to sign the legislation, which has already cleared the Florida House. It is expected to go into effect on July 1st.
Supreme Court precedent clearly makes abortions legal until at least the 22nd week of pregnancy, but a Mississippi law lowering the cutoff to 15 weeks is currently being considered by the Court. Republican lawmakers across the country are anticipating that the conservative majority will accept the lower threshold, and they’re racing to pass stringent legislation.
The Associated Press reports on the intense debate that preceded passage of the Florida bill:
This week, Sen. Lauren Book, a Democrat who turned the pain of being sexually abused by her nanny into a career of helping other survivors, tearfully revealed she was also drugged and raped by multiple men when she was a young teenager. She implored senators to allow exemptions for rape, incest or human trafficking.
“It’s not OK to force someone who’s been sexually assaulted and impregnated to carry that pregnancy to term if they don’t want too, it’s just not,” Book said. “And if a woman or a girl needs more than 15 weeks to decide, we should be able to give that to her.”
In a separate exchange from when the bill passed the GOP-controlled House last month, Republican Rep. Dana Trabulsy told lawmakers she previously had an abortion but has “regretted it everyday since.”
“This is the right to life and to give up life is unconscionable to me,” she said.
The AP adds:
GOP lawmakers in West Virginia and Arizona have also introduced similar 15-week abortion bans similar to the Mississippi law under review by the Supreme Court. Republicans in other states have modeled legislation after a law in Texas which effectively banned abortions after six weeks.
The New York Times explains how the Florida bill is consistent with a “sweeping push by Republicans to put the state at the forefront of the nation’s culture wars:”
Other legislation on the verge of passage includes banning instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in some elementary school grades, and allowing parents to sue public school districts if students believe that their teacher sought to make them feel discomfort about a historical event because of their race, sex or national origin.