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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Florida isn't losing the right to an abortion ... yet
Tampa Bay TimesNo Paywall
Thats because Floridas abortion laws have to fall within the boundaries of not one, but two constitutions, said Danaya Wright, a professor of law at the University of Florida.
The first is the U.S. Constitution, which no longer protects a persons right to abortion following the U.S. Supreme Courts bombshell decision this week in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization.
The second is the Florida Constitution.
The difference in protections largely comes down to the 1980 inclusion of a 47-word amendment to the Florida Constitution guaranteeing the right to privacy.
Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the persons private life except as otherwise provided herein, the document reads.
The Florida constitution does. In a 1989 case, the states Supreme Court ruled that the privacy clause covered the right to an abortion.
In 1989, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the state Constitution offered extensive protections for abortion rights. Its opinion was largely concerned with defining privacy in a constitutional sense.
We can conceive of few more personal or private decisions concerning ones body that one can make in the course of a lifetime, the opinion read.
John Stemberger, a conservative lawyer whos been a leader in the push to restrict abortion rights in Florida, said that court was litigating the wrong question. They should have been asking what voters understood privacy to mean when they approved the 1980 constitutional amendment, he said.
Walleye
(31,022 posts)How is DeSantis going to be able to deal with this? He needs to prove what a right wing dictator he is
SoCalDavidS
(9,998 posts)And he expects to court TFG's voters, he'll need to go big, or go home.
And at least the majority of Floridians Are dumb, so there's that.
In It to Win It
(8,251 posts)Floridians at the time did not include the right to abortion in their privacy right, or whatever mind-reading "originalism" bullshit.
I recall also reading previously that the state Supreme Court (I didn't read the actual opinion itself) found it reasonable that Floridians would have thought about abortion in the right to privacy because it was 1980, a time in which Roe had already been decided and the right to an abortion was tied to the right to privacy.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)In It to Win It
(8,251 posts)and the ACLU is suing the state over it given current state Supreme Court precedent.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)Good for us!