Miami archbishop: Vote no on abortion amendment | Opinion
Amendment 4, which will appear on Florida’s November 2024 ballot, is an extreme proposal that legalizes full-term abortion with no protections for the preborn child, including when the child is capable of feeling pain. This proposed amendment to our state constitution would prohibit all restrictions on abortion before viability and create a broad exception that any “healthcare provider” could exploit to allow abortion up to birth. I urge all Catholics and people of good will: Vote “no” on Amendment 4.
This is not about imposing our views on society but instead making our proposal about what is necessary for human flourishing. By insisting that every human being matters, we bring to public policy debates on issues of dignity, justice, and peace an understanding of the individual that, while founded on Christian scriptures, is also accessible to human reason. In making our proposal, we hope to persuade our fellow Floridians to vote “no” on Amendment 4.
We urge all the voters of our state to join in our opposition and reject this extreme and ill-conceived proposition.
Even those who do not agree with the Church teaching that human life begins at conception should find reasons to oppose this amendment. The amendment, for example, would effectively overturn or seriously jeopardize common-sense state laws that have regulated abortion for years. These include basic health and safety requirements for clinics where abortions are performed, informed consent requirements for physicians performing abortions, laws limiting public funding of abortion, and parental consent requirements before a minor’s abortion.
As Catholics, we believe that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision of society. In urging a no vote on Amendment 4, we wish to protect not only the unborn child — the weakest, most innocent, and defenseless among us — but we also seek to protect countless women from the harms of abortion. Unborn children matter — and so do their mothers. Our Respect Life Ministry with its Pregnancy Assistance Centers helps provide women with life-affirming alternatives to abortion and compassionately offers counseling and access to healing for those who have regretted a past abortion.
Catholic teachings on the rights and dignity of every human being, from conception to natural death, stand in stark contrast to a tendency in our world to define classes or categories of people as “problems” and thus “dehumanize” them. Such reductive thinking led to the successive genocides of the 20th century and rationalizes the continued killing of the unborn. Last year, there were more than 84,000 abortions in Florida alone! These are 84,000 reasons why all Floridians should reject Amendment 4 and vote a resounding “no!”
Thomas Wenski is archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami.