Miami, United States.- Florida legislators on Thursday approved a bill to reduce the state’s abortion deadline from 15 to six weeks, an initiative supported by Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign the bill immediately.
The text was approved by the Lower House with 70 votes in favor and 40 against – a week after advancing in the Senate – and will be sent to DeSantis’s office for his signature.
It is the second time in a year that the two Republican-majority Florida houses vote on a bill to cut the legal term for abortion. In April 2022, DeSantis signed a law that reduced it from 24 weeks to 15, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
The Governor, a rising star of the Republicans after promoting a very conservative agenda, took this initiative anticipating the annulment by the US Supreme Court of the federal right to abortion, something that ended up happening in June 2022.
The new bill establishes that women will not be able to have an abortion in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, unless the fetus is not viable, the pregnancy endangers the mother, or is the result of rape or incest and do not exceed 15 weeks.
Even if DeSantis signs the text, something that is taken for granted, it will not enter into force while the Florida Supreme Court does not rule on an appeal filed by several associations against the 15-week limit, arguing that this law violates a clause of state privacy.
The defenders of the new term assure that it is necessary to protect the lives of innocent beings.
The Democratic Opposition and pro-abortion activists say the state should not meddle in a personal decision and that imposing a six-week deadline is tantamount to banning the practice, as many women ignore their pregnancy until later.
“I don’t need any law to determine how my body will be used. I decide if and when I am pregnant,” Democratic Congresswoman Jennifer Harris declared during the debate in the House of Representatives.
According to a poll by the NGO Public Religion Research Institute, 64 percent of Floridians believe that abortion should be allowed in all or most cases.
Despite the 15-week limit, Florida remains one of the most permissive places for abortions in the southeastern United States, prompting numerous pregnant women to travel there from neighboring states to terminate their pregnancies in recent months.
