Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody A filing last week in the state Supreme Court signaled Attorney General Ashley Moody will try to block a bal
A filing last week in the state Supreme Court signaled Attorney General Ashley Moody will try to block a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida Constitution.
The Supreme Court must review the initiative’s proposed wording and determine if it meets legal requirements for clarity and dealing only with a single subject. In the filing Monday, Moody wrote that the initiative “does not satisfy the legal requirements for ballot placement.”
Moody also wrote an opinion piece that ran on the Florida’s Voice website in which she said her opposition to the issue going on the November 2024 ballot “has nothing to do with my personal views on abortion.”
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“Instead, as I have done throughout my two terms, I have objected to initiatives when the language of the summary will mislead voters,” Moody wrote in the opinion piece.
Moody also is asking the Supreme Court to block a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow recreational use of marijuana.
The proposed abortion amendment would bar laws that restrict abortions “before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
Moody in the opinion piece pointed to the proposed amendment’s use of the word “viability,” writing that the term can have more than one meaning.
The group Floridians Protecting Freedom launched the ballot initiative in May after the Republican-controlled Legislature and DeSantis approved a bill that seeks to prevent abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
Along with needing Supreme Court approval of the proposed wording, Floridians Protecting Freedom must submit at least 891,523 valid signatures by a Feb. 1 deadline to get on the ballot.
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The committee released a statement Tuesday disputing Moody’s argument about the wording.
“The proposed amendment is clear and precise in limiting government interference with abortion ‘before viability,’” Floridians Protecting Freedom Campaign Director Lauren Brenzel said in the statement. “Viability in the abortion context has always meant the stage of fetal development when the life of a fetus is sustainable outside the womb through standard medical measures.”
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