As of Jan. 5, a collection of abortion rights groups called Floridians Protecting Freedom has collected enough signatures to put a proposed state constitutional amendment to codify abortion rights on the 2024 ballot. Though they only needed 891,523 signatures, the group has gathered more than one million.
The goal of the proposed amendment is to completely ban restrictions on abortions before fetal viability, which is about the 24th week of pregnancy. The bill also includes exceptions past this point for health issues which would be determined by the patient’s doctor or healthcare professional.
“The petitions that were gathered and the ballot initiative would begin a constitutional amendment. If it passes in November, it would override legislation that [currently] limits abortion and will provide women in Florida with an opportunity to access abortion up to whatever is determined to be [the] viability [of the fetus],” Former Mayor of Pinecrest and activist Cindy Lerner said.
If this amendment were to end up on the ballot and pass, it would overrule Florida’s current 15 and six-week ban, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed into law but has not yet gone into effect. The six-week ban would go into effect 30 days after the Florida Supreme Court officially rules on a case challenging the current 15-week ban with concerns over the ban violating the state constitutional right to privacy, depending on the court’s decision.
“The title is ‘Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion.’ And it’s very different from other states where they have had constitutional amendments on the ballot that have stated a positive right to have an abortion,” Executive Director of Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition Anna Hochkammer said. “As opposed to enshrining a positive right to access a specific medical intervention, what it says is that there are limits to the amount of government interference there can be in people obtaining an abortion. So, if you look, it’s all about stopping the government from doing things that make it harder for women and girls to get healthcare.”
Hochkammer’s organization is one of the six groups making up Floridians Protecting Freedom, giving her an up-close and personal look at the process of getting this amendment on the ballot. During the process of obtaining the amount of petitions required, which Hochkammer calls “phase one,” the groups faced a series of challenges.
“The state of Florida has made it very complicated, very expensive and very difficult to get a popular referendum on the ballot. So, we had to raise about $17 million. We had to organize about 10,000 volunteers across 200 different organizations. We had to talk to donors inside Florida and out and talk to the media and get people to understand not only that we were doing this and we wanted them to sign the petition and encourage people to engage, but that we had a real path to making the ballot,” Hochkammer said. “There were a lot of people who said it was going to be impossible. ‘Florida’s too big, it’s too complicated, you can’t do it in nine months.’ And we ended up turning in about 1.4 million petitions and just stopped about mid-December.”
Despite successes in collecting a large amount of signatures, phase one was not a simple process. According to Lerner, the challenges did not end with obtaining funding and raising awareness for the movement. Collecting the petitions themselves was a complicated and lengthy task, demanding countless hours of attention and work from volunteers.
“There have been election efforts at different events, [like] farmers’ markets in Pinecrest,” Lerner said. “We’re out just about every week collecting petitions at farmers’ markets, college campuses and art shows. People were collecting petitions wherever there were people that you could go up to with a clipboard, explain what the petition was about and ask them to sign it.”
On Jan. 3, the Florida Supreme Court announced that they would hear oral arguments for the case on Feb. 7, giving conservatives an opportunity to prevent the amendment from appearing on the ballot if they can prove one of two things: that the proposed amendment is more than one subject, or that it is misleading or unclear.
“We’re standing up and saying, ‘This is this very simple language in our amendment; it’s two sentences long; these are the words; it’s a single subject, and it’s not misleading,’” Hochkammer said. “They’ll make the argument that ‘What are you talking about? It is unclear, people don’t understand this word or that word.’ So, our job will be to look at the court and say ‘Well actually, the definition of those words is very clear.’ And we’ll get law dictionaries, medical dictionaries, you know, the dictionary you might have on the shelf of your room that you use for school, [and say] ‘These words all mean exactly the same thing everywhere.’”
To aid the effort in getting the amendment on the ballot, Lerner suggests that people go online to the website of the organization of their choice and sign up as a volunteer. However, none of the efforts will make a permanent change until they are solidified at the polls.
“When we get closer to November, there will be a lot of people that are going to be volunteering to go door to door targeting voters and making sure that they get out and vote. So, that’s a way to be able to participate — to help with canvassing for people that typically do vote in presidential years. To make sure that they actually go out and vote, and vote for this referendum,” Lerner said.
For people unable to vote, however, Hochkammer suggests simply raising awareness about abortion by bringing it into everyday conversation. According to her, simply breaking the stigma around the topic is an extremely important part of the abortion rights movement.
“Ask about abortion. Bring it up with your mom, bring it up with your cousins. Ask people about abortions and about the experiences that they have had or their relatives have had. Often, a lot of people shy away from these conversations and might not know the stories that happened to your aunt, or your grandma, or your mom or your older sister,” Hochkammer said. “I guarantee that there will be stories to share and discussions to be had. So, even if you can’t donate and you don’t really want to get involved actively, having that conversation will do a lot of the workforce.”
