Gabrielle Russon
If you followed the Hurricane Helene coverage on TV or watched the MLB playoffs, you know the Amendment 4 debate is intensifying as both sides are rolling out new commercials to influence undecided voters with the election one month away.
Each side accuses the other of being too extreme for Florida.
The latest pro-Amendment 4 ad features Deborah and Lee Dorbert of Lakeland, who were denied access to an abortion because of Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
“I remember the doctor handing me a baby boy that was blue, and I just held him because he was so cold,” Deborah Dorbert said. “Due to the abortion ban. I was being forced to carry the baby from 23 weeks all the way to 37 weeks, knowing that my son was going to die.”
“The government had no right to do that to my family. This ban is torture.”
Meanwhile, the No on 4 group released an ad that targets the ballot language as being too vague.
“Bait and switch. Sleight of hand. Smoke and mirrors,” a female narrator says, calling Amendment 4 “much more extreme than at first it seems.”
Amendment 4 needs at least 60% of the vote to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect in May following the end of Roe v Wade.
In its newest ad, No on 4 ad attacks the ballot language for not being precise.
“So how many definitions does Amendment 4 provide? Zero. This small trick is a big scam,” the anti-Amendment 4 ad says. “They didn’t have to write Amendment 4 this way, but they did. Why? Because they want to deceive you to make their extreme amendment seem reasonable.”
The ad also claims the ballot initiative eliminates parental consent for minors to get the medical procedure. Amendment 4 campaign leaders dispute that and say the initiative does not impact adult consent.
“No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider,” the ballot language says.
Viability, the period when an unborn child can survive outside the womb, is considered to be about 24 weeks.
The ballot wording also reads, “This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
The Amendment 4 campaign argues their ballot language is clear and needed to protect women’s health care and choices from the government. The term “viability” is a medical term that is also appearing in state law, they said.
14 comments
Bobblehead Kammy
October 3, 2024 at 1:42 pm
Where would the zombies be without abortion as a campaign item?
A Day without MAGA
October 3, 2024 at 6:36 pm
How abortion Trump paid for Google Melania Abortion
LexT
October 4, 2024 at 8:21 am
The whole thing is hyperbole and scare tactics. This should not be a constitutional amendment. This is supposed to be an issue for the legislature. The legislature can tinker with changes to the number of weeks and exceptions. Abortion should be seen as a tragedy. Abortion should not be used as birth control. Anything but the earliest of abortions should be seen as a killing. And yet we have so many exceptions for murder. We should have exceptions for abortion too. The legislature is the proper body to nuance a compromise. The compromise in the legislature can also be a moving target trying to find the best balance. At the end of the day, you can fly in a plane to NYC and they’ll give you your abortion up to the moment of birth and maybe after. It is not as dire as the Left would contend.
TLext
October 4, 2024 at 1:50 pm
100% WRONG
MarvinM
October 4, 2024 at 5:42 pm
“This should not be a constitutional amendment. This is supposed to be an issue for the legislature.”
This is a great argument to vote NO on 1, 2, 5, and 6 particularly, since those 4 amendment proposals were put on the ballot BY THE LEGISLATURE!
Why didn’t they just write and pass law about it? I don’t know. But if any of those don’t pass, it’s not the end of the line for the issue. Just write your representative about it and I’m sure they’ll have some bill written up toot sweet and probably pass it easily.
Only 3 and 4 were put on the ballot by citizen initiatives, and if they don’t pass, there’s a slim chance the legislature will take them up, a next to zero chance they’ll pass, and a zero chance a governor DeSantis would sign them.
So yeah, 3 and 4 are basically the only two that SHOULD be amendments to the constitution.
YES on 3
YES on 4
cassandra was right
October 4, 2024 at 11:23 pm
The “legislature” created the tragedy that the parents in the above Amendment 4 ad are being forced to live through. Desantis’ ban directly caused the suffering of this baby for every minute of his short life. Are you even capable of understanding that? “Prolifers” need to tell us all just what benefit anyone got from forcing this woman to carry a doomed pregnancy for three more months. Your lack of compassion shows the moral depravity of forced-birth extremists. That’s why Amendment 4 is needed.
alberta
October 5, 2024 at 5:43 pm
Well just listen to you pontificate about controlling other people’s bodies. Take a breath.
Then mind your own business.
LexT
October 4, 2024 at 8:21 am
The whole thing is hyperbole and scare tactics. This should not be a constitutional amendment. This is supposed to be an issue for the legislature. The legislature can tinker with changes to the number of weeks and exceptions. Abortion should be seen as a tragedy. Abortion should not be used as birth control. Anything but the earliest of abortions should be seen as a killing. And yet we have so many exceptions for murder. We should have exceptions for abortion too. The legislature is the proper body to nuance a compromise. The compromise in the legislature can also be a moving target trying to find the best balance. At the end of the day, you can fly in a plane to NYC and they’ll give you your abortion up to the moment of birth and maybe after. It is not as dire as the Left would contend.
yew oweme
October 4, 2024 at 11:06 am
LEXT, you might be able to fly your maga ass to nyc, but what about a poor person? the point is having to travel to another state to be treated fairly. lext, your colors show. you seem to be a maga cultist for sure.
cassandra was right
October 4, 2024 at 11:51 pm
“This is supposed to be an issue for the legislature”
NO. It’s supposed to be an issue for the people involved— the woman and only whomever she chooses to include. 80% of Americans want government out of abortion decisions! FREEDOM from Government intrusion! Vote YES on 4
Justhefacts
October 4, 2024 at 12:11 pm
Vote NO on 4-
Parental notification is not the same thing as consent. If passed abortionists in FL can be “health care providers” not medical doctors. FL would become the abortion destination state for the entire Southeastern U.S. as it is banned after 5 weeks in most states….Alabama, GA, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana and Texas.
yew oweme
October 4, 2024 at 12:15 pm
so what’s wrong with that? you florida people love tourist money don’t you?
cassandra was right
October 4, 2024 at 10:00 pm
Amendment 4 just repeals Desantis’ extreme abortion ban and returns things to what they were under Roe. Medical regulations and provider qualifications will still exist, just as they do for ALL areas of medicine.
As to your whiney and offensive comment that “Florida would become the abortion destination state”: IT IS ABSOLUTELY NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHERE OTHER PEOPLE GET THEIR HEALTHCARE.
Vote YES on 4
Cindy
October 5, 2024 at 9:10 pm
Like everyone finances children that can’t make it in life..
Like they don’t criminalize poverty after viability.
Comments are closed.