Whitney Fox, Lindsay Cross condemn six-week abortion ban ahead of Wednesday implementation

Image via Whitney Fox for Congress.

Congressional candidate Whitney Fox is condemning the six-week abortion ban that will take effect in Florida Wednesday, noting “dire consequences” to women across the state. 

“This law is already pushing doctors out of our state for fear of legal repercussions,” Fox said. “Let me be clear. When this law goes into effect in Florida, women will die.”

Fox, who is one of five Democrats (a sixth is running as a write-in) vying for the party’s nomination in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, is using the law’s implementation to remind voters of the Republican incumbent’s track record on the abortion issue and advocate for an amendment on the November ballot in Florida that would enshrine abortion protections into the state constitution. 

“State laws will mean nothing, hard-fought state victories like Amendment 4 will mean nothing if extremist politicians like Luna get their way and impose a national abortion ban,” Fox said. “Anna Paulina Luna wants to take our freedoms. And that’s why, for the sake of every woman, every family, and for my own daughters, we must vote her out this November.”

Fox delivered remarks at a news conference Tuesday morning with state Rep. Lindsay Cross, a Democrat who has endorsed Fox, as well as Fired Up Pinellas founder Karen Berman and a local mom, Abi O’Connor, who experienced a devastating miscarriage. 

“Had I not been able to access that necessary abortion care, my son may have lost his mother, my husband may have lost his wife, or I may not have been able to get pregnant again and have my daughter, Juniper,” O’Connor said. “The point of a six-week abortion ban is not to protect women and families, the point is cruelty and control. I ask that all of you look at your moms, sisters, daughters, wives, co-workers, and friends and see that our rights are being taken away by these anti-abortion extremists.”

Cross, who is facing re-election this year against Republican challenger Ed Montanari, called on voters to ensure abortion protections through voting choices up and down the ballot, not just on Amendment 4. 

“Make no mistake – the reproductive rights of millions of Floridian women are on the line this November. Not just Amendment 4, but up and down the ballot,” Cross said. “I also need allies, like Whitney Fox, to be fighting for our reproductive rights nationwide.”

Fired Up Pinellas is a local grassroots advocacy group that works at the local, state and federal levels to protect progressive values and defend democracy, according to its website. Berman lamented eroding rights for women, rights she said she once took for granted. 

“It does not escape me that my own children now have less rights than I did. There has never been a right of this magnitude that has been granted and then taken away in the history of the United States,” she said. “People in public office should not impose their personal belief systems on others. To the women of Florida, this certainly doesn’t feel like freedom.”

Fox has been running hard on the abortion issue, which Democrats nationwide — and particularly in the South — expect to help them at the ballot box this year. Democrats nationwide over-performed in the 2022 midterms after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court — though Florida was an outlier in that success. 

It’s not the first time she’s called out Luna for being part of what she describes as an attack on women’s reproductive freedoms. In March, Fox posted a video announcement condemning Luna and other anti-abortion Republicans over the in vitro fertilization issue that roiled Alabama earlier this year. There, the state Supreme Court issued a ruling that essentially declared frozen embryos unborn children, prompting local IVF providers to halt treatments until the state passed protections ensuring they would not be subject to costly litigation. 

At the time, Luna had proposed a federal IVF fix. But Fox argued it lacked teeth and was merely smoke and mirrors. She said Luna was “deceiving families and giving them a false sense of security.”

But before Fox can take on Luna in November she’ll have to win a crowded battle for the Democratic nomination in CD 13. She faces credible challenges from at least three Democrats. 

So far, Fox has outraised all of them, with $420,000 brought as of the end of March. Three candidates have also raised — or self-funded — six figures, including Mark Weinkrantz, Sabrina Bousbar and Liz Dahan. Weinkrantz has brought in more than $188,000, including $140,000 of his own money. Dahan has raised $127,000 as of the end of March, though her campaign says that number has since grown to more than $220,000. And Bousbar, a progressive who would be the first Generation Z woman in Congress if elected, has raised just under $127,000 as of the end of March. 

Fox has also outraised Luna in the past two campaign finance reporting periods covering the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. But she still has a funding challenge ahead. Luna has raised nearly $1.3 million overall, with more than $636,000 still on hand. Fox, meanwhile, has just over $278,000 on hand.

Florida’s six-week abortion ban is going into effect after the Florida Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that a 15-week ban could stand, which triggered the more restrictive ban the legislature passed the year after it approved the 15-week ban that was challenged.