Newsom calls on Florida women to come to California for abortions after passage of six-week abortion ban in Sunshine State

04/08/2024 / By Ava Grace

California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging pregnant women in Florida to seek abortion services in California. This comes after the Florida Supreme Court issued a ruling upholding the state’s 15-week abortion ban, dealing a blow to a legal challenge asking the court to throw out the ban.

In June 2022, a lower court in the state ruled that the ban violated the state’s constitution, temporarily suspending it. The state appealed the decision on the same day, leading to it being upheld by the Florida Supreme Court.

This ruling paved the way for a six-week trigger ban signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to go into effect 30 days after the ruling. This led to Newsom making a statement calling on women in Florida to leave the state. (Related: They’re coming for your CHILDREN: California Governor Gavin Newsom signs “anti-parent” law.)

“If you are no longer able to get abortion care in your home state, California has the resources and support available to help you exercise your reproductive freedom,” he said. The governor also criticized the ruling, saying it “severely restricts reproductive freedom and cuts off access to care before many women even know they are pregnant.”

“For the past six years, Gov. DeSantis has put up a freedom facade so he could systematically cut down people’s rights based on his own personal political agenda,” continued Newsom. “Today, yet another right was stripped away from Floridians through Gov. DeSantis’s anti-rights agenda – millions of Floridians and women in neighboring states with total bans will now no longer be able to access essential reproductive healthcare on their own terms.

California currently allows abortion up to the point of viability, or when the fetus could survive outside the uterus without requiring extreme medical interventions. This is typically around the 24th week of pregnancy, but could vary from woman to woman.

Abortions after this point are only permitted if a physician determines that continuing the pregnancy would endanger the life or health of the mother.

State law also protects individuals traveling to California for abortion procedures, and the state offers various programs to cover their travel expenses. Doctors who mail abortion pills, other abortifacients and contraception medication to patients in other states are also protected.

Florida to vote on enshrining abortion rights into state constitution in November

In a separate decision released on the same day, the Florida Supreme Court decided to allow an abortion-related ballot initiative to push through and be decided on by voters in November.

This initiative will allow voters to decide whether to enshrine the right to abortion into the state’s constitution. The decision will allow voters to determine the future of abortion access in the state in November.

Before the passage of the 15-week ban, Florida became a key access point for women seeking abortion who live in neighboring states that have passed laws ceasing nearly all abortion services. Data from the Guttmacher Institute estimates that nearly 5,000 more abortions were performed in Florida from January to June 2023 compared to the same period in 2020.

Visit Abortions.news for more stories about abortion bans in the United States.

Watch this clip from Fox Business discussing how Democrats are planning to make abortion a top issue in the November election.

This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.