Anne Geggis
Legislation that critics believe would have restricted in vitro fertilization in Florida hit a dead-end Monday, but national Democrats are erecting billboards to remind Floridians how Republicans want to keep rolling back reproductive rights.
Billboards in English and Spanish are going up today in Miami, Orlando, Tallahassee and Tampa and will remain through Thursday. They show former President Donald Trump bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade. That’s the court decision that had allowed abortion until the 24th week of pregnancy for nearly 50 years. The billboards also hit on the chaos that overturning that right has unleashed. Notably, last week, the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are legally children.
The decision has shut down fertility clinics throughout Alabama in recent days.
“Is Florida next?” the billboard asks.
The billboards are going up in battleground states throughout the country, according to a DNC spokesperson. Orlando is getting two of them.
In vitro fertilization has been an accepted medical procedure since the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in 1978. Still, there are plenty of advances that Republicans, led by the former President, would put in the past, the billboard suggests.
“Donald Trump is the reason why cruel abortion bans across the country are ripping away women’s reproductive freedom and threatening access to IVF for Americans trying to start a family,” Rhyan Lake, a Democratic National Committee spokeswoman, said in a prepared statement. “Trump is proudly responsible for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and wants to go even further by banning abortion nationwide.”
Returns at the ballot box have shown, so far, that Americans support the right to an abortion. And Florida voters could have their turn to make the right to an abortion a part of the state constitution in November. It would trump state legislation passed last year that would ban abortion before most women know they are pregnant, depending on how the state Supreme Court rules on privacy language in the state constitution.
And many believe that a bill (SB 476) that Republican Sen. Erin Grall proposed represented an attempt to nullify any ballot-box effort to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. Polls show most Floridians agree that abortion should remain legal, but the legislation would give “personhood” status to fetuses in civil liability cases. It raised the specter that a woman could be sued by her rapist for ending a pregnancy resulting from a rape, or a doctor at risk for being sued for performing an abortion.
The concerns over the personhood provision became more acute when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last week that embryos were people under that state’s constitution.
“This is a backdoor attempt at personhood,” Democratic Senate Leader Lauren Book told reporters Monday. “Any time you start talking about personhood, IVF is on the table.”
Grall, however, postponed a vote in front of the Senate Rules Committee on Monday.
The Committee isn’t scheduled to meet again this Session, so it’s likely the end of its consideration for now.
“Although I have worked diligently to respond to questions and concerns, I understand there is still work that needs to be done,” Grall said in a released statement. “It is important we get the policy right with an issue of this significance.”
But danger still looms across the country, according to a statement from the DNC’s Lake: “Americans are sickened by Trump and MAGA Republicans’ attacks on their right to make their own decisions for their families, and voters across the country know that these freedoms are on the ballot this November.”
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Florida Politics writer Gray Rohrer contributed to this report.
12 comments
Mayorkas Impeached
February 27, 2024 at 6:24 am
When you can’t campaign on the economy.
When you can’t campaign on low crime.
When you can’t campaign on immigration.
After the abortion fear, next will come social security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Demos are getting ready to put Biden back in the basement. The state run media will take it from there.
Dont Say FLA
February 27, 2024 at 7:17 am
Go howltning to ya, Howlass Howled! Counting back up.. 1, 2, 3 …
Thanks for the G0P style tips but the Democrats can just run on the economy, dropping crime rates and how the G0P just threw themselves and the border states under the bus, nay, under the train, just because Trump said so.
G0P runned itself over with the Trump Train. They thought they could sneak under the closing cross arm, but that’s never a good idea. For those who fail their under arm sneak, the train always wins.
Dont Say FLA
February 27, 2024 at 7:12 am
Not sure it’s billboards that are raising fear about disappearing reproductive rights.
It’s Republicans that are raising fear about disappearing reproductive rights by actually disappearing Americans’ reproductive rights .
The billboards are just pointing out facts.
Best economy on Earth, dropping crime rates and the G0P sunk G0P theme immigration bill’s failure could probably also billboards about how Republicans screwed those all up and Obama had to fix them and then Republicans screwed them up again and Biden had to fix them.
Biden will have to put the typical EO band-aid onto immigration which never works but what can ya do when House Speaker Trump instructed House N_____ Mike Johnson to shut down the border bill rather than the border? Once again without Congressional action, no real change can come to the border. Just like 4 years ago and 4 years before that and 8 years before that etc etc etc
The border isn’t a problem for the powers that be. The border is a solution to their problems.
VD
February 27, 2024 at 8:19 am
You continue to ignore the fact that Sleepy Joe and his incompetent Border Czar had both the House and Senate and did nothing to stem the flood of illegals. That poor girl in Athens Georgia that was murdered by an illegal will come back to haunt you Demos along with fuel prices, inflation, the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, city crime, and on and on. Continue to wave that abortion flag though.
Dont Say FLA says G0P's Border Bluff Was Called
February 27, 2024 at 8:49 am
At least read what people wrote before copy pasting bullet points. Please? Or did you read them, but your employers didn’t give you enough US history to know that “4 years ago” is when Biden had a Democrat run full Congress.
I had JUST said “Once again without Congressional action, no real change can come to the border. Just like 4 years ago (IE BIDEN w/ DEM CONGRESS) and 4 years before that and 8 years before that etc etc etc The border isn’t a problem for the powers that be. The border is a solution to their problems.”
Would that dead girl be any less dead if her murderer had been a US citizen? Why try to conflate issues if the border and immigration are legitimately an issue?
Oh right- because House Speaker Trump instructed his House N_____ Mike Johnson to keep the border open. That’s why.
Getting out of a G0P run war will haunt Biden? How so? We’re out. Nobody’s been KIA in Afghanistan since then, unlike Trump’s 4 years of nearly innumerable deaths every single year in Afghanistan. And Obama’s 8 years. And Dubya’s 6.5 years (of the war he created in Afghanistan)
City crime. What, Miami? That’s Francis Suarez. G0P.
Abortion flag? That was the G0P’s flag but they surrendered it.
You got some weird takes, VD
And TBF to Biden and Democrat Congress 4 years ago, they had to prevent the Trump Depression and end Covid before getting back onto crumbling bridges and other more urgent (at the time) issue.
Now that the Trump Depression’s averted (unless he gets another chance at it, and he’s repeatedly expressed a explicit desire for Depression), infrastructure’s being repaired and brought up to date, Covid is being controlled (in half the population, at least), now Biden finally got to work with our elected Congress on immigration, but an unelected orange dildo named Maga Lardo has assumed the role of House Speaker (despite being an unelected orange dildo facing 91 felony indictments) and the border continues doing whatever the border does for the G0P.
You got ask yourself what the border does, as it is, for the G0P. Why would they shut down the border bill, not the border? What’s the angle on THAT?
The GOP spent 30+ years making claims about what they wanted for the border. Biden called their bluff by offering it to them in writing.
G0P voters really needs to assess what their representatives truly want from the border, ’cause it’s not what they said they wanted. They were offered that, in writing, and they declined.
VD
February 27, 2024 at 10:13 am
Spin. That’s it. Spin. You will probably even agree that Biden is up for another four years. He should be in senior care now. Spin.
Dont Say FLA
February 27, 2024 at 1:33 pm
Facts are spin, and spin is facts of the kind “alternative.”
That is today’s G0P
Is Biden up for another 4 years? Well according to the G0P he’s been senile and hiding in a basement his whole administration.
According to constant G0P attack line, Biden himself seems to be irrelevant to the wildly successful Biden administration.
Therefore, based on G0P’s estimation of Biden, the Biden Administration can do Weekend At Bernie’s with him for all I care, just as long as whoever is running things keeps running them for 4 more years.
Michael K
February 27, 2024 at 9:31 am
The Republican party has no platform – just culture wars and obstruction, locally and nationally. Overturning Roe exposed the erosion of basic civil liberties and human rights under Trumpublicans. It is a defining issue in this campaign – maybe not for aging boomers glued to Fox “news” who are past their reproductive prime, but it certainly is for younger people and their parents, relatives and friends who care about their daughters.
Americans overwhelmingly reject state control of women’s bodies.
PeterH
February 27, 2024 at 10:14 am
Republicans are America’s worst enemy!
Vote all Republicans out of office!
VD
February 27, 2024 at 10:28 am
Another zombie /cultist that will follow Old Joe to the senior care facility.
Dont Say FLA
February 27, 2024 at 1:40 pm
The G0P’s entire platform is “Biden’s too old.”
G0P’s can’t even admit the other stuff they do such as an unelected Maga Lardo effectively being the Speaker of the House while the G0P’s elected Speaker the House is just a House N_____ that does whatever unelected Maga Lardo tells him to do.
Just two more Republicans resign early rather than end of term and Maga Lardo is put back in his box where he belongs assuming the box is pine.
Are there two Republicans who are not running for re-election who also care about USA and the border?
If there are, resign now so the border can be fixed.
Please for the love of USA, Two House Republicans, resign NOW instead of at your end-of-term.
Slave weren't allowed to have abortions
February 29, 2024 at 9:06 am
Slaves weren’t allowed to have abortions. The plantation owners were always happy to get a new worker at zero cost other than employee downtime.
GOP doesn’t want kids learning about slavery.
Abortion was banned for Floridians by the G0P?
What’s the connection? Yeah, the G0P, obviously, but why?
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