7 OctOber 31 - NOvember 6, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | PANTS ON FIRE Governor DeSantis is lying about Amendment 4. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN A s Election Day 2024 nears, Gov. Ron DeSantis is working overtime to dissuade Florida voters from passing Amendment 4, the statewide initiative to enshrine the right to abortion in Florida’s constitution — and thus to preserve the six- week abortion ban he signed into law in April of 2023. In the process, he’s also spreading a lie. In an October 18 post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, DeSantis falsely claimed Amendment 4 undermines “the foundation of parental rights in Florida” by removing the requirement for parental con- sent for minors. “Florida has the strongest protections for parents’ rights, but Amendment 4 would change that,” he tweeted on X that day. “I’ve signed legislation to defend the rights of mothers and fa- thers to be involved in medical decisions con- cerning their own chil- dren. A school nurse cannot give your child an mRNA shot or even a Tylenol without your consent — and that’s how it should be. “But Amendment 4 would remove the re- quirement for parental consent for minors seeking an abortion, a serious procedure that can have long-term consequences for both physical and mental health.” In fact, passage of the amendment would do no such thing. Where Is the Lie? The initiative, which will require a 60 per- cent majority on November 5 in order to pass, states, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as de- termined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legisla- ture’s constitutional authority to require notifi- cation to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.” That wording echoes language from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade. That includes the mention of fetal “via- bility” — the standard most doctors use to de- fine the point during pregnancy when a fetus can survive outside the uterus without medi- cal support (generally around 24 weeks). The amendment’s language makes no mention of parental consent. And yet DeSantis claimed in his tweet that “Amendment 4 would remove the requirement for parental consent for minors seeking an abortion.” Three days later, flanked by Florida doc- tors who likewise oppose Amendment 4 at a press conference in Coral Gables, the gover- nor repeated that claim, asserting, “If Amend- ment 4 was adopted, it will eliminate Florida’s parents’ rights for parental consent for minors and abortion.” But What About “Consent”? “This amendment was drawn on purpose to look like Roe,” Louis Virelli, a Stetson Univer- sity law professor, tells New Times. The only substantive difference, Virelli says, is the mention of parental notification, which the authors intentionally tacked on in recogni- tion of a legislative amendment to the state constitution that voters approved in 2004. Other than the nod to notification, “It’s just 1973 all over again,” Virelli says. If the amendment passes, “It’s just re-instituting the national status quo” from 50 years ago. That, or the current law of the land in Florida, where the cutoff point for legal abor- tions is six weeks after a woman’s last men- strual period. That is an interval at which some women might well be unaware they’re pregnant. (A study by the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology found that half of respondents began experiencing pregnancy symptoms around the end of the fifth week, and 90 per- cent by the eighth week.) Viewed in that light, DeSantis’ false claim seems to be a clear indication that he wants no part of the actual issue Florida voters will confront on November 5: whether to return to the Roe v. Wade era or to engrave into the state’s constitution a veritable prohibition on a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. More to the point, it may be that DeSantis is well aware that 62 percent of Americans support the standard ushered in by Roe. So, Does Consent Figure in Florida Law at All? It does — but only for the past four years or so, when the legislature added it to the state statutes in 2020. And only meaningfully since April, when the Florida Supreme Court reversed decades’ worth of precedent in pro- claiming that a woman’s constitutional right to privacy does not extend to abortion, paving the way for the six-week ban, which went into effect on May 1. Not only that, Virelli notes, but the consent law itself was technically unconstitutional when it was enacted. That goes back to 1989 when the state’s high court ruled that a law requiring minors to secure parental consent prior to undergo- ing an abortion violated the right to privacy. Three years later, in 1992, the U.S. Su- preme Court ruled in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that parental consent was constitu- tional in such situations, but the conflict has never been resolved in Florida. “From 1989 on, Floridians seem to have been relatively happily living under a regime with no parental consent law,” Virelli adds. “I think people don’t understand that there was no parental consent law prior to April of this year.” If voters approve Amendment 4 on No- vember 5, the conflict regarding parental con- sent will almost certainly be addressed by the Florida Supreme Court. And while one can’t assume how the court’s seven justices might rule, it’s worth noting that Gov. Ron DeSantis has appointed five of them to their post. As Virelli puts it, “This court is a favorable place for the government to make their argu- ment.” The fact remains, however, that passage of Amendment 4 would not repeal the parental consent law. Ipso facto, anyone who says it does is ei- ther misinformed or lying. (Same goes for people who’d have us be- lieve that Amendment 4 would open the door for tattoo artists to perform abortions. It would not.) [email protected] Excuse us, Governor. Are your pants on fire? Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr | METRO | “IT’S JUST 1973 ALL OVER AGAIN.”
