Pro-choice advocates call Florida bill ‘most extreme’ ever filed in US

Jan. 16--A freshman lawmaker from Florida's panhandle has filed a bill that would effectively ban abortions after about six weeks into a pregnancy, an initiative reproductive rights advocates are calling the most extreme anti-abortion bill ever filed in Florida.

The so-called fetal heartbeat bill, HB 235, filed by GOP lawmaker Mike Hill, a self-described evangelical Christian from Pensacola, would require doctors to inform women seeking abortions whether the fetus has a heartbeat and offer her the opportunity to view or hear the heartbeat. Women who decline must do so in writing.

Doctors who perform abortions after a heartbeat is detected could be charged with a third-degree felony under the bill. Fetal heartbeats are normally detected about six weeks into a pregnancy, often before a woman knows she is pregnant.

"This is the most extreme bill that has been presented anywhere in the U.S," said Amy Weintraub, the Reproductive Rights Program Director for Progess Florida. "It's clearly unconstitutional in every way and it is blatant attempt to end access to abortion care for Florida women."

Hill said the bill does not outlaw abortions in Florida.

"It's not an attempt to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body," Hill said. The bill makes exceptions in cases of rape, incest, human trafficking or when the mother's life is in danger. "The whole purpose is to protect the life of the unborn."

Hill's bill strikes the word "fetus" from existing abortion-related laws and replaces it with "unborn human being." The bill goes on to define an "unborn human being" as "an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth."

The bill mirrors those filed in ten other states, none of which made it past governors, legislatures or courts. Like Florida, other states are now crafting similar legislation knowing passage would end up in court and set the stage for challenge to Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion a constitutional right.

Hill said he did not have Roe v. Wade in mind when he drafted the bill.

"Challenging Roe v. Wade would stop abortions altogether," Hill said. "My bill doesn't do that."

Hill's bill, filed on Jan. 10, is the first abortion-related bill filed in advance of the 2019 session, scheduled to begin in March. For years, GOP lawmakers have been successfully chipping away at abortion rights knowing that former Republican Gov. Rick Scott would would sign off on their bills.

It is likely that the state's new Republican governor Ron DeSantis will do the same. During a gubernatorial debate in June, then-candidate DeSantis pledged he would sign fetal-heartbeat legislation.

The unknown now is how Florida's new Supreme Court would rule on a legal challenge to such a law. The court has widely been seen by abortion rights groups as the last defense against efforts to erode access to abortions.

"We know that in Florida the state legislature is constantly launching attacks to reproductive health care," said Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood affiliates. "The Florida Supreme Court has been a backstop."

However, three justices -- including two women -- recently retired, giving DeSantis the opportunity to act on his belief that judicial activism is rampant in Florida. In his inaugural address on Jan.9, DeSantis vowed to "only appoint judges who understand the proper role of the courts is to apply the law and Constitution as written, not to legislate from the bench."

DeSantis acted quickly, filling two of the vacancies with judges who are both members of the Federalist Society, a national group of conservative and libertarian attorneys, law students and legal scholars, many who are outspoken opponents of abortion.

The group's executive vice president is Leonard Leo, an ardent anti-abortion conservative who advised President Donald Trump on the Supreme Court appointments of justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

DeSantis' appointments have caught the attention of reproductive rights activists.

"Women's right to abortion care have long been protected by the Florida Constitution and Supreme Court and we definitely are concerned that those things in jeopardy as the makeup of the court shifts to the right," Weintraub said.

There has also been a realignment of another backstop for pro-choice advocates: the federal judiciary. Under President Trump, and in the post-nuclear option Senate, a number of federal judiciary bench vacancies have been filled by conservatives.

Hill said recent appointments to the U.S. and Florida supreme courts have given him hope.

"The courts have changed dramatically, including here in Florida, and that makes me hopeful that it can pass a court challenge."

The same day Hill filed the fetal heartbeat bill, Orlando Democrat Rep. Amy Mercado filed a bill, HB 227, that would protect patients and employees of reproductive health clinics from verbal and physical harassment and violence.

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