Florida abortion initiative receives enough signatures to appear on 2024 ballot

SARASOTA, Fla. – Abortion rights activists received enough signatures for a constitutional amendment to appear on the 2024 ballot which aims to protect the right to abortion.

Under Florida rules, at least 891,523 valid signatures are needed to appear on the ballot. As of early-January, the Florida Division of Elections has verified 911,169 petitions submitted by the campaign.

Floridians Protecting Freedom previously said it will deliver a total of 1.4 million signatures to the supervisor of elections offices by the end of December, but those numbers were not met.

“We did it!” Florida Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book said. “As of today, the Florida Division of Elections is reporting that the Abortion Ballot Initiative has SURPASSED both the raw total petition number and congressional district spread needed to PUT ABORTION ON THE BALLOT!”

The abortion measure that would be on the 2024 ballot reads:

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. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.

Yahoo News reported that Florida Voice for the Unborn Founder and Executive Director Andrew Shirvell said the term “viability” in the abortion measure does not have a clear definition.

“It would legalize abortion up until the moment of birth for just about any reason and there’s pretty much nothing that the legislature or the governor or any of our governmental entities could do to interfere with that so-called super state-charged constitutional right,” Shirvell said.

The ballot initiative is pending review by Florida Supreme Court.

In October, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody requested the Florida Supreme Court issue an advisory opinion as to whether this ballot initiative complies with legal requirements for ballot placement.

Per the state’s constitution, ballot initiatives “shall embrace but one subject and matter directly connected therewith.”

Moody also requested the court examine if the initiative’s title and summary align with technical and substantive requirements under Florida law.

In her request, the attorney general argued that the initiative “does not satisfy the legal requirements for ballot placement.”

In an opinion piece for Florida’s Voice, Moody expanded on her rationale for opposing the amendment not out of her beliefs against abortion, but for legal reasons.

“As I have done throughout my two terms, I have objected to initiatives when the language of the summary will mislead voters,” she said. “Floridians Protecting Freedom’s initiative is one of the worst I have seen.”

Florida lawmakers passed, and DeSantis signed into law, two major abortion restriction laws since 2022.

In 2022, Florida codified banning abortion in most cases after 15 weeks. This year, DeSantis signed a law banning the practice in most cases after six weeks. The six week ban would take effect once an ongoing Florida Supreme Court case resolves a dispute over the 15 week ban.