Jacob Ogles
A leaked report suggesting the Supreme Court will soon overturn Roe v. Wade drew strong reactions from Florida leaders. Immediate reactions showed how the sudden restriction on access to abortion could impact Florida’s elections for U.S. Senate and Governor.
Sen. Marco Rubio criticized the leak, but signaled support for restricting abortion. He voted to confirm three of the conservative Supreme Court justices likely to be part of a majority overturning Roe.
“The next time you hear the far left preaching about how they are fighting to preserve our Republic’s institutions and norms, remember how they leaked a Supreme Court opinion in an attempt to intimidate the justices on abortion,” he tweeted.
He also tweeted in response to a post by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders suggesting the Senate should pass a law codifying Roe.
“Translation: Let’s change the rules of the Senate to pass a federal law legalizing the killing of unborn children right up to the day of delivery,” Rubio posted.
U.S. Rep. Val Demings, the lead Democrat challenging Rubio’s re-election, expressed disdain at the potential decision.
“Striking down Roe v. Wade and taking away a woman’s right to make her own decisions is appalling and dangerous,” Demings said in a statement. “We refuse to go back to being treated as second-class citizens whose personal decisions are made by politicians like Marco Rubio, who has fought relentlessly against the right of Florida women to control their own destiny. Women deserve an end to the constant politicization of our basic, fundamental rights. Let me be clear: I will always stand up, speak out, and fight to codify Roe v. Wade into law, no matter what.”
Meanwhile, the decision also could reshape the race for Governor, where Gov. Ron DeSantis last month signed a 15-week abortion ban (HB 5) into law in anticipation of this ruling. As of this posting, DeSantis had not addressed the leaked ruling, but all his major Democratic opponents responded to news immediately.
U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, a Democrat running for Governor, tweeted the potential decision to overturn Roe should drive voters to oust DeSantis.
“If true, the fight for a woman’s right to choose will be left up to each state to decide … and front and center in this fall’s election,” he posted after POLITICO first reported the news. “We must defeat DeSantis.”
Crist was previously elected to the Governor’s Mansion as a Republican in 2006.
“This issue is personal to so many of us,” he continued. “Early in my career I was faced with the decision to protect a woman’s right to choose. I stopped a bill in the State Senate that would have required a 24-hour waiting period. As your Governor, I vetoed an anti-abortion bill. And I’ll do it again if need be — because I will always stand with women.”
Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democratic candidate for Governor, tweeted angrily about the potential decision.
“The women of our country are under direct attack by right-wing radicals,” she posted. “Overturning the freedom over our bodies is unconstitutional, unacceptable, and taking us back to a dark, dark time. If they can control our bodies, what do we have left? This cannot stand.”
State Sen. Annette Taddeo, also a Democratic candidate for Governor, said she opposed the potential overturn of Roe.
“I never thought I would see the day when our own Supreme Court would strip away the rights of millions of women across this country. Regression like this is commonplace in fascist countries but has no place in a free society,” Taddeo said in a statement.
“Make no mistake about it, the brunt of this ruling will be felt by women who cannot afford to cross state lines, the majority of them Black and Brown, to states that allow access to this medical care. Allowing states to ban access to reproductive healthcare will only lead to an increase in unsafe, non-medical alternatives. As a mother, I am terrified for my daughter and the rest of her generation who might lose safe access to vital care. Now more than ever it’s urgent to elect a governor who will protect a woman’s right to choose.”
14 comments
Impeach Biden
May 3, 2022 at 9:27 am
Of course this article is hoping it could reshape the races. The Democrats were so far under water with the voters out there that they were desperate for anything that might lift them. Well it looks like they found them either a law clerk or a Supreme Court Judge leaked this. Of course if it is one of the Law Clerks they will be disbarred but probably get their own show on MSNBC.
More of
May 4, 2022 at 3:59 am
Everyone should be doing what that “law clerk” did. The time for words has passed.
Harry kamalatoe
May 5, 2022 at 3:07 pm
You are advocating for destroying the fundamental principle of private deliberation before reaching a decision that has national impact. Guessing you aren’t a big fan of democracy either…
Stevie Imes
May 4, 2022 at 11:51 pm
I think an anti-abortion activist leaked this — so the backlash would be played out by the August primary and very old news by November.
Harry kamalatoe
May 5, 2022 at 3:08 pm
Or an abortion activist… for the exact same reason lol
Not worried
May 3, 2022 at 10:10 am
I don’t think it will make a big change. If you have watched carefully over the past two decades, you’ve noticed the gradual but certain swing away from the “Roe” philosophy and toward pro-life, or at least toward the idea of state control of such things. That is why this decision comes now, and did not come 30 years ago. The silent but powerful majority has decided what it wants: safety for the mother, probably some choices in cases where crimes were committed, but not the abortion-as-a-lifestyle-choice horror that bedeviled this culture for much of the last half of the previous century.
Don’t Look Up
May 3, 2022 at 10:26 am
Fun Fact:
82% of women and a substantial majority of men want abortion on demand to be safe and legal. It’s called a woman’s “right to privacy” with her medical advisers.
Laws passed in miserable red states like Texas create “self described vigilantes” to monitor women….. kind of like Handmaid’s Tale.
Jerry
May 3, 2022 at 3:15 pm
Hmm.. interesting. So you have a medical right to privacy when it comes to killing a baby. But you don’t have a medical right to privacy when it comes to vaccinations? So I can’t choose what gets injected into my body?
You talk about a constitutional right to abortion, but you people are at the same time eroding free speech of your political opponents, weaken religious freedom, and want to destroy the 2nd amendment. Don’t try to tell me the liberals support the constitution. The left has not stood up for the constitution in decades! You people hate individual freedoms. COVID proved that.
Not gonna hear it
May 4, 2022 at 4:01 am
Stiff it.
You people only care about yourselves.
Harry kamalatoe
May 5, 2022 at 3:12 pm
Facts, Jerry. Nothing but facts. Well said.
Harry kamalatoe
May 5, 2022 at 3:10 pm
where did you get that “82%” from…? Also if you ask those same people if they agree with 42 week abortions how would they answer?
tom palmer
May 3, 2022 at 7:09 pm
Muchacho,, we don’t know who leaked the opinion. I guess your view depends on you view of how much power the jackboot of the state should have. One of the rationales for the original decision lay in the 9th Amendment, which reasoned the state should not stick its nose into citizens’ private lives.
Kristie
May 3, 2022 at 10:55 pm
Polls asking Americans if roe should be overturned of course posed the question in the abstract; now, however, a theory has become a fact and so certainly many women voters are now going to think twice about voting for a party that has declared war on women’s reproductive choices.
Justifiably, I think Republicans will lose many suburban housewife votes over this farcical court decision. I am one of those suburban women who has voted for both parties for years but now my ballot will go totally democratic in 2022.
By the way, the person who leaked the awful document deserves a Nobel prize and a medal for courage.
The GOP has shown that no right is sacred if Republicans hold power and voters now
more than ever see that very clearly and so I think Republicans typically overplayed their hand and have alienated millions of women voters.
Harry kamalatoe
May 5, 2022 at 3:23 pm
>voting for a party that has declared war on women’s reproductive choices.
Was the the same party who openly says that men can get pregnant?
>Justifiably, I think Republicans will lose many suburban housewife votes over this farcical court decision.
Only the ones who are woefully ignorant on the topic, like yourself.
>my ballot will go totally democratic in 2022.
Why? You do know that the democrats truly hate women, right? You are aware that the democrats are the party who are actively pushing for biological men to take over women only spaces right? Are you really so blinded by ignorance that you would down ballot for a team that has spent the past 4 years pushing women out of women spaces?
>By the way, the person who leaked the awful document deserves a Nobel prize and a medal for courage.
The circumvented the democratic process in order to push their own agenda. they deserve to be disbarred and thrown in jail for eroding the sanctity of judicial proceeding and private judiciary debate.
>The GOP has shown that no right is sacred if Republicans
What right? Please explain to me what rights are being removed if/when Roe v Wade is overturned?
Comments are closed.