Florida Abortion Restrictions To Remain In Effect During Legal Battle | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Michael Whittaker.

    Florida's new ban on on abortion after 15 weeks will remain in force while ongoing litigation over its constitutionality plays out in the courts.

    Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper issued a temporary injunction on the law last week, finding that it violated Florida's constitution. The state appealed, which, under Florida's court rules, triggered a stay of the injunction and allowed the law to stay in effect. Judge Cooper denied a request by abortion clinics and a physician to vacate the stay.

    In their emergency motion, the plaintiffs were adamant that the injunction needed to continue.

    "Every day that HB 5 (the law) remains in effect, Florida patients in desperate need of post-15-week abortion services are being turned away and forced to attempt to seek abortions out of state, if they are able to do so; to attempt abortions outside the medical system; or to continue pregnancies against their will," the motion said.

    Judge Cooper declined to do so. Pointing out the "very high burden" set by the 1st District Court of Appeals for vacating stays during the appeals process, Cooper wrote that "courts are obliged to follow binding precedent even if they might wish to decide the case differently" and noted that direction from the appeals court meant that automatic stays may only be vacated "under the most compelling circumstances."

    The law in question, HB 5, was passed in early March and drew ire of the White House and pro-abortion forces across the country - Florida's Governor, Ron DeSantis, has regularly clashed with the Biden Administration on policy, especially on hot button issues such as COVID restrictions and gender ideology.

    The law was challenged on the grounds that it violated a privacy provision in the Florida Constitution. Without the new restrictions, abortion in Florida would remain legal up through the first 24 weeks in pregnancy, and its 55 abortion clinics could remain in operation and offer their services to women from neighboring states, many of which have trigger laws that have or will ban abortion outright following the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, or else have even more stringent restrictions on abortion than the proposed Florida law.

    Florida has a very high rate of abortions per capita, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the overwhelming majority take place during the first trimester, and would remain legal even under the new restrictions. Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade Governor DeSantis has voiced his desire to "expand pro-life protections" in the state, although the governor's office has declined to outline specifics beyond the current 15 week ban.

poll#152

With Roe v Wade (originated in 1973) overturned by the US Supreme Court, thereby allowing decisions on abortion legislation completely returned to the states: Where do you find your position on such a "Life and Death" issue for the American People?

  Yes, I approve of the US Supreme Court's decision to reinstate this "medical" issue back to the states' legislative responsibility to regulate.

  No, I believe that every woman should have complete access to abortion on demand.

  This issue is far beyond my intellectual capacity to understand.

583 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?

poll#150

With respect to the leaked opinion not yet written for ratification regarding the U.S. Supreme Court's revisiting the original decision of Roe v Wade, whence now nonstop protests have erupted in neighborhoods where U.S. Supreme Court justices live, exhibiting the firm intent to intimidate these officers of the highest court in the land: What action should the federal authorities take?

  Do nothing ... Protests are a fixture of a free society.

  Enforce the law ... Federal codes exist to prohibit any intimidation through the pubic harassment of federal judges, especially Supreme Court justices.

  I have no idea, however, northern Virginia School Board Members must be shielded from protests at all costs.

548 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?