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Amendment 4, an effort to add the right to abortion to Florida’s constitution, is like most of the post-Dobbs ballot initiatives: intentionally vague, confusing, and intended to undermine both the legislative process and parental rights.
On Election Day, Floridians will have a chance to vote on a question that could very well be the difference between life and death: Amendment 4.
This ballot measure will determine if the state constitution should be amended so that abortion is available without restriction up until the age of viability — and potentially even up until birth.
In response, pro-life advocates have been gearing up to help Florida’s electorate understand why voting “No” to the question is so critical.
To draw attention to the effort, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, R, hosted an event last week in a packed auditorium of Jesuit High School in Tampa, highlighting the launch of a major campaign targeted at defeating Amendment 4. The campaign, which goes by the name “Vote No on 4 Florida,” has a website, informational videos, and written content, as well as ways for anyone who cares about maintaining Florida’s status as a pro-life state to get involved.
In a speech, DeSantis reminded attendees at the August 15 event that it would be “the end of the pro-life movement” if Amendment 4 is adopted; this will happen if a supermajority of voters, or 60 percent, vote in favor of the measure.
Amendment 4 was put on the Florida ballot after the state’s Supreme Court issued a ruling with dual implications. On the one hand, the court’s judges ruled 6-1 in favor of a 15-week abortion ban signed by DeSantis with minimal exceptions, which then allowed a more restrictive 6-week abortion ban to go into effect a month later. Florida’s current 6-week “heartbeat” law, passed in the wake of the Dobbs opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, does include exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother, as well as human trafficking and fetal abnormalities.
However, in a separate 4-3 ruling, the state’s high court also allowed Amendment 4, put together by pro-abortion advocates, to move forward and be voted on this fall.
The amendment’s language 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.”
The way the amendment is worded presents a number of problems. Ashley Moody, Florida’s attorney general, had previously argued that the amendment’s summary language is misleading to voters and asked the Florida Supreme Court justices to keep it off the ballot. In a 50-page brief, she argued,
“The ballot summary here is part of a … design to lay ticking time bombs that will enable abortion proponents later to argue that the amendment has a much broader meaning than voters would ever have thought.”
Putting aside the amendment’s clear embrace of abortion, the first major issue in its language is that the term “viability” is undefined. While the original Roe v. Wade decision set the standard at 24 weeks, the point at which a child could conceivably survive outside the womb, a recent article by members of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) stated that fetal viability “depends on many complex factors, of which gestational age is only one.”
There is no doubt that this amendment would effectively limit or end the ability of the legislature to restrict abortion for any reason prior to 24 weeks. This would be long after the point when an infant can feel pain, which is as early as 12 weeks into a woman’s pregnancy, according to data from the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Nearly 80 percent of Americans support protections against aborting unborn children from 15 weeks of pregnancy onward, due to the pain concern and other reasons.
Secondly, the amendment language does not adequately define terms such as “healthcare provider” and “patient’s health.” The lack of clarity among these terms suggests that an individual could receive an abortion in Florida after viability for any reason deemed necessary by a , including if the mother suffers from a non-life-threatening medical condition such as mental stress or anxiety. Under this amendment, that would mean healthcare providers, even Planned Parenthood or other abortion clinic workers, could greenlight abortions at any time, for any reason, at any place within the state of Florida.
Thirdly, the amendment undermines Florida’s existing parental consent law governing abortion. At present, a Florida law passed in 2020 requires that physician obtain written and notarized permission from a parent, as well as identification and proof of the parent-child relationship, before performing an abortion on a minor.
The amendment, by contrast, requires only “parental notification” if a minor undergoes an abortion, which, if passed, would make abortion the only medical procedure in the state for which the provider would not be required to gain permission from a minor’s parents before performing it. Thus Amendment 4 would represent an attack on parental rights, putting life-altering decisions in the hands of minors who may not be equipped with the same guidance and wisdom that their parents have to offer.
Although it refused to clarify the original wording of the ballot measure, the Florida Supreme Court earlier today rejected a challenge from pro-abortion advocates and will allow a revised 150-word financial impact statement to be attached to the Amendment 4 ballot question.
That statement reads as follows:
“The proposed amendment would result in significantly more abortions and fewer live births per year in Florida. The increase in abortions could be even greater if the amendment invalidates laws requiring parental consent before minors undergo abortions and those ensuring only licensed physicians perform abortions. There is also uncertainty about whether the amendment will require the state to subsidize abortions with public funds. Litigation to resolve those and other uncertainties will result in additional costs to the state government and state courts that will negatively impact the state budget. An increase in abortions may negatively affect the growth of state and local revenues over time. Because the fiscal impact of increased abortions on state and local revenues and costs cannot be estimated with precision, the total impact of the proposed amendment is indeterminate.”
Amendment 4, which will also be voted alongside a similar amendment that would legalize recreational marijuana use, is yet another reminder of why Christians must be involved in the political process, which means, at a minimum, voting against pro-abortion measures and candidates.
Just as we read in the biblical account of Queen Esther in Esther 4:14, we cannot remain silent “at such a time as this.” We must work for the cause of life and apply biblical truth to our civic engagement, even though it may be inconvenient. In her day, Esther knew that approaching the king required courage, and that decision required her to value what was righteous and faithful above her own life — because if she didn’t, her entire race of people, the Jews, would have perished.
In the same way, we must be willing to put aside our personal desires for convenience and comfort to stand up for millions of unborn lives, the ones who, as Proverbs 31:8-9 reminds us, “cannot speak for themselves.”
If the Church does nothing, thousands of babies, God’s imager-bearers, will perish, and we will one day be held to account by Christ Himself for failing to adhere to the command in Proverbs 24:11-12:
“Deliver those who are being taken away to death,
And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back.
If you say, “See, we did not know this,”
Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts?
And does He not know it who keeps your soul?
And will He not render to man according to his work?”
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