James Call
Abortion rights opponents and proponents packed a Senate meeting room Wednesday when the Judiciary Committee took up a proposal to mandate a 24-hour waiting period.
SB 724 requires a face-to-face meeting between a physician and a woman to discuss the procedure at least 24 hours before it is performed.
“When one makes a major decision 24 hours is not an undue burden,” Sen. Anitere Flores, the bill’s sponsor, told the committee.
Flores is relying on a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a Pennsylvania waiting period in her presentations for the proposal. That ruling shifted the standard used to evaluate whether restrictions on rights are constitutional from a “strict scrutiny review” to “unduly burdensome” in most states.
Florida’s privacy amendment to the state constitution, though, keeps the strict scrutiny standard in place. Flores’ proposal could still pass constitutional muster if the state were able to justify a compelling issue to mandate a 24-hour waiting period.
“What is the compelling state issue to have to put a 24-hour waiting period in place,” Sen. Darren Soto said.
“I imagine constitutional lawyers will argue this case before a court,” Flores said. “My initial argument would say the U.S. Supreme Court has said that we can fulfill our state legislative duty by doing things that were essentially not an undue burden. The U.S. Supreme Court has said that a 24-hour waiting period is not an undue burden. And we go from there.”
Flores argued that a waiting period is not unprecedented in Florida law: A resident has to wait three days to complete a purchase of a handgun. A couple must wait three days to get married. A married couple must wait 20 days to get a divorce. She also noted that one can’t walk into a doctor’s office and have a knee replacement performed on the same day.
Since the high court upheld the Pennsylvania law, 25 other states have imposed a waiting period on women seeking an abortion. None, though, had a privacy amendment like Florida to trigger the strict scrutiny standard of review.
Sen. Arthenia Joyner asked whether the proposal included provisions for women having to travel great distances to find an abortion provider. Texas, for instance, includes exceptions for traveling more than 100 miles.
“It would be something to consider when we get to the Senate floor,” Flores said.
Committee chair Miguel Diaz de la Portilla scheduled 23 minutes for public comment. Faith-based groups supported the measure while civil libertarians and women groups opposed it.
The measure passed on a 6-3 party line vote with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. SB 724 now sits in the Fiscal Committee, its last stop before it is introduced on the Senate floor.
