Florida Supreme Court case: Tens of thousands of lives at stake
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Florida Supreme Court case: Tens of thousands of lives at stake
Taking the life of a human being is never merely a private matter.
Last Friday the Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida v. State of Florida.
What is this case about?
Planned Parenthood is challenging Florida’s 2022 law protecting unborn babies from brutal abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation, a point by which science shows they can feel pain. The law has not been blocked during litigation; it is in effect.
A 1989 state court precedent, In re T.W., created a “right” to abortion under Art. I, Sec. 23 of the Florida Constitution (“the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person's private life”). Planned Parenthood argues In re T.W. should be upheld and the 15-week protections struck down as an unreasonable governmental intrusion on this so-called right.
The State of Florida argues that the Court relied overly on Roe v. Wade and the implied federal right to privacy when it issued In re T.W. In light of the Dobbs decision, the State says In re T.W. should be overruled and the 15-week protections upheld.
SBA Pro-Life America filed an amicus brief supporting the State of Florida. We agree that the Court wrongly interpreted the Florida Constitution in 1989 and that it does not contain a “right” to abortion anywhere.
Charlotte Lozier Institute filed a separate amicus brief outlining the advances in medical technology since 1989 and the state’s compelling interest in protecting children from painful late-term abortions.
How does this case affect Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act?
In April 2023, the Florida Legislature passed a law that would protect unborn children from abortion after six weeks’ gestation, with exceptions for rape, incest, and human trafficking through 15 weeks’ gestation, to preserve the life or health of the mother in a medical emergency, or to deliver a baby suffering a fatal fetal anomaly.
The Act passed by large margins – final votes were 26-13 in the Senate and 70-40 in the House – and Governor DeSantis signed it into law on April 13, 2023.
A poll conducted by Ragnar found 62% of likely Florida voters support the Act, including 61% of Independents, 58% of women and 76% of Hispanic voters.
The Act’s gestational protections were enacted under a trigger, meaning they will not take effect until 30 days after one of these three events occurs:
the Florida Supreme Court overrules In re T.W.;
the Florida Supreme Court issues a ruling stating that the privacy clause does not protect a “right” to abortion; or
the Florida Constitution is amended to provide the same.
The Heartbeat Protection Act also appropriated $25 million for alternatives to abortion programs to support moms during pregnancy and beyond – funding that is not subject to the trigger and took effect immediately. The Act also expanded the types of programs that can be funded to include employment and educational resources and broadened participant eligibility to include adoptive families.
Florida’s pregnancy centers offer free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, medical exams, counseling, parenting classes, financial classes, and resources such as food, diapers, clothing, and financial assistance for housing and utilities.
Should the Florida Supreme Court overturn In re T.W., it would start the clock for the Heartbeat Protection Act to fully take effect.
Abortion and “privacy”
The Washington Post today asks, “Do privacy rights imply abortion rights?” In response to that question, it is worth revisiting John Hart Ely’s 1973 Yale Law Journal article in which the liberal, pro-abortion scholar eviscerated Roe v. Wade, writing:
What is unusual about Roe is that the liberty involved is accorded a far more stringent protection, so stringent that a desire to preserve the fetus’s existence is unable to overcome it—a protection more stringent, I think it fair to say, than that the present Court accords the freedom of the press explicitly guaranteed by the First Amendment. What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right [to abortion] is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation's governmental structure. Nor is it explainable in terms of the unusual political impotence of the group judicially protected vis-à-vis the interest that legislatively prevailed over it. ... [Roe] is bad because it is bad constitutional law, or rather because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.
What did the chief justice say that makes pro-life advocates hopeful?
Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz made several encouraging comments during oral arguments, noting that “the same entity that created that understanding of the right of privacy” – the U.S. Supreme Court – “has told us that it was a mirage” and that the abortion lobby is “asking us to essentially take a whole class of human beings and put them outside of the protection of the law.”
He’s right, of course. Taking the life of a human being, whether an adult or an utterly defenseless child in the womb, is never merely a private matter.
In the case of Florida, tens of thousands of lives are at stake.