Earlier this year, Florida's state supreme court approved a controversial ballot measure that would ensure expanded access to abortions in the state if approved, though the procedure would still have limits. There were still a few more steps to go, however, because getting a voter-sponsored measure on the ballot is a complicated process. The next step, taken this week, has generated additional controversy, particularly on the left. A state conference has added an impact statement that must appear next to the ballot measure. Abortion proponents were immediately up in arms, with the HuffPo describing the statement as being "misleading" and "riddled with misinformation." It's not, of course, but this is the hottest topic that Democrats have to run on this year so they will no doubt be playing every angle in this ballot debate for all it's worth. 

The advocates behind Florida’s pro-choice Amendment 4 cleared a huge hurdle in April when the notoriously conservative state Supreme Court approved the measure for the November ballot. Many were relieved at the time — believing that the biggest obstacle was behind them — but after this week, it’s clear they’re not out of the woods just yet.

A Florida administrative committee decided earlier this week on a financial impact statement that must appear alongside Amendment 4 on ballots. Over the course of three meetings, including a 12-hour debate on Monday, the Florida Financial Impact Estimating Conference crafted a statement riddled with misinformation that will be printed next to the amendment seeking to restore abortion access until around 24 weeks in the state.

The first thing to remember here is that pretty much every state that allows voter-initiated ballot measures (currently 26 of them) has provisions for impact or clarifying statements to be included alongside the measure on the ballot. These almost always generate cross-party fights. In California, a ballot measure that would ban transgender medical procedures for minors wound up having a massive impact statement attached declaring that it would "block access to care for children" and was "harmful" to the LGBTQ community. The fight continues.

This measure in Florida is fairly straightforward. It would ensure abortion access for up to 24 weeks, which seems like a rather long time to me because you're bumping right up against the envelope of fetal viability. The current limit that was put in place under Ron DeSantis is 16 weeks, or the end of the first trimester. Florida is now a fairly solidly red state, so I wouldn't have thought this new measure would pass, but then, we said the same thing about Ohio, and look what happened there.

As for the impact statement, you can read the full thing at the link, but there's nothing particularly extreme about it. It predicts that Amendment 4 will result in "significantly more abortions" and fewer live births. It questions whether the courts might rule that the state must subsidize abortions with taxpayer funds. The statement predicts that legal costs required to battle these questions will impact the state budget, and an increased number of abortions will eventually cause a decline in state revenue.

I will agree that many of the provisions of the impact statement are couched by saying that this or that "might" happen or "could" happen, making them rather ambiguous. But the majority of the key points seem fairly solid. If you allow abortions to be performed up to twice as far into the pregnancy, you will almost certainly wind up with more abortions, not less. This vote may prove instructive in some ways. Almost all the polling we've seen shows that very few people approve of abortions in the third trimester (after fetal viability) unless the life of the mother is imperiled. However, strong majorities are willing to tolerate the procedure in the first trimester. Not many voters have been asked to decide if the second trimester is an acceptable limit. We should find out in November.