Floridians Protecting Freedom, a coalition that includes Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Florida, is seeking to amend Florida’s Constitution to expand abortion access in the state. Florida currently has a 15-week abortion ban, and could face a six-week ban depending on the outcome of a Florida Supreme Court ruling.They are seeking to do so via a proposed ballot measure on the 2024 ballot.
Florida’s Attorney General Ashley Moody has asked the state Supreme Court to keep the proposed abortion rights amendment off the ballot and is misusing the expertise of medical professionals in her attempt to do so. In her efforts to push back against the initiative, including in an op-ed in the Florida Voice News, Moody misrepresented guidance issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to support her claims.
ACOG’s guidance, issued following the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, reflects the medical community’s longstanding conclusion, backed by decades of research, that political interference into the practice of medicine is harmful to people and communities.
On behalf of ACOG, Democracy Forward and the law firm Swope, Rodante P.A. filed a brief in the Supreme Court of Florida to address the Attorney General’s argument that the ballot summary of the Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion is misleading.
In our democracy, knowledge is power. Yet, across the country – from Florida to Ohio – there is a movement by far-right politicians to warp the truth in order to manipulate the will of voters by either changing ballot language or trying to keep measures off the ballot entirely. The AG’s misuse of guidance from medical experts is a thinly veiled attempt to prevent the issue of abortion from getting in front of voters – the majority of whom support reproductive freedom.