Florida Legislature Seeks to Protect More Life
The Sunshine State is ready to expand life protections with bills filed in both the Republican-controlled House and Senate.
Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The new bills filed Tuesday seek to protect unborn children after six weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for medical emergencies and proven rape or incest.
The legislation would also prohibit government funds from being used to pay for a woman to travel to another state to receive an abortion.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is widely believed to be positioning for a 2024 presidential bid, signaled that he will sign some version of the bills.
In his State of the State speech Tuesday, the governor said, “We are proud to be pro-family and we are proud to be pro-life in the state of Florida.” In a press conference afterward, he said in regard to the bills, “We welcome pro-life legislation.”
WATCH: Ron DeSantis pledged to sign an extreme six week abortion ban, before many women even realize they’re pregnant. Florida Republicans just introduced it: pic.twitter.com/BIQxu0eQHa
— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) March 7, 2023
Not only are these bills pro-family in the sense they protect the sacred life of the unborn, but they also allocate funds for parental support. The Senate version of the bill provides $30 million for the state to set up a parenting support network.
As expected, the life-saving efforts have drawn criticism from the Biden administration.
“We know that these bans are already having a devastating impact on women’s health,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, Politico reported.
And don’t worry — she didn’t miss the opportunity to take a swing at DeSantis.
“Politicians like Gov. DeSantis,” she said, “espouse quote, freedom for all, unquote, while directly attacking the freedom to make one’s own health care decisions. Their rhetoric doesn’t come without consequences here.”
As much as the Left may come at Florida Republicans — namely DeSantis — for the conservative policies that the state is embracing, the state’s electorate overwhelmingly chose this route during the 2022 midterms.
In 2018, DeSantis won the governorship by less than one percentage point. In 2022, he was reelected with nearly 60 percent of the vote — a nearly 20-percentage-point win.
This remarkable surge between 2018 and 2022 must necessarily be an endorsement of the route that DeSantis has pursued for Florida.
The Left will highlight the word “ban” to manufacture a “Gotcha!” moment against the freedom-loving governor — you’ll probably see it in every major news headline on the story.
“How can you love freedom if you’re banning a woman’s freedom to choose?” they ask.
We should not conform to their intentional language. As conservatives, let’s not perpetuate their (often successful) public relations strategy of calling it a dark “abortion-ban bill.” That feeds into the Left’s narrative and paints a picture that the Right is immoral and oppressive.
Let’s call it what is — a life-saving bill that protects the unborn’s God-given right to life.
The post Florida Legislature Seeks to Protect More Life appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.