The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, signed a law on Thursday to reduce the term for abortion in the state from 15 to six weeks, hours after the White House described this measure as “extreme and dangerous.”
“We are proud to support life and family in the state of Florida,” DeSantis, a rising star on the American right and a possible 2024 Republican presidential nominee, said in a statement issued late at night.
The governor did not take long to sign a text approved hours before by the Lower House with 70 votes in favor and 40 against, a week after advancing in the Senate.
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 White House assured that the reduction of the term to six weeks “goes against fundamental freedoms and is not in line with the opinions of the vast majority” of Americans, according to a statement from its press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. .
“This ban would prevent four million Florida women of reproductive age from accessing abortion services after six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant,” he added.
The new law establishes that within said period women will not be able to abort in Florida unless the fetus is not viable, the pregnancy endangers the mother, or it is the result of rape or incest and does not exceed 15 weeks.
The text 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 state privacy clause.
The defenders of the new term assure that it is necessary to protect the lives of innocent beings. The Democratic opposition and activists in favor of abortion affirm, for their part, that the state should not interfere in a personal decision and warn of the negative consequences for many women.
“This bill prohibits abortion legally, but it will not actually prohibit it,” Democratic Congresswoman Lindsay Cross declared during the House debate. “Abortions will be done in private, without medical supervision and with increasing risk to women’s health, their physical and mental well-being.”
According to a survey by the NGO Public Religion Research Institute, 64% 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.
The law signed this Thursday could put an end to this situation and represents a new victory for anti-abortion activists, hours after the restriction in the United States of access to mifepristone, a drug used to terminate a pregnancy, following a court decision. .
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
