The Quickie: With Nearly One Million Signatures, Florida Ballot Initiative Exceeds Petition Threshold
For Immediate Release: Jan. 5, 2024
Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.
In today’s Quickie: Florida ballot initiative exceeds petition threshold and Trump can’t erase his abortion record.
WITH NEARLY ONE MILLION SIGNATURES, FLORIDA BALLOT INITIATIVE EXCEEDS PETITION THRESHOLD: Today, Floridians Protecting Freedom — the campaign to put abortion on the ballot in November — announced that they had hit a critical goal for the initiative. The initiative had obtained nearly one million signatures — 910,946 to be exact, exceeding the requirement of 891,523. It’s a resounding success for the campaign that demonstrates the support for reproductive freedom in the state.
“The fact that we only launched our campaign eight months ago and we’ve already reached our petition goal speaks to the unprecedented support and momentum there is to get politicians out of our private lives and health care decisions,” Floridians Protecting Freedom Campaign Director Lauren Brenzel said in a statement. “Most initiative campaigns never make it this far. The ones that do usually spend far more or take much longer to qualify, which is why we’re so confident that voters will approve our amendment once they’re given a chance to vote.”
The next stop for the initiative is the Florida Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments on the initiative’s approval on February 7th.
Read more at the Tampa Bay Times.
DONALD TRUMP CANNOT ERASE HIS ANTI-ABORTION RECORD, NO MATTER HOW HARD HE TRIES: Many anti-abortion politicians are trying to distance themselves from their deeply unpopular records. Donald Trump, who has taken full credit for “killing Roe v. Wade,” is trying to erase his long-documented record of attacking sexual and reproductive health care, especially abortion access.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them, said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “Donald Trump has shown us over and over again where he stands on abortion and the great lengths he will go to strip away our fundamental freedoms. Try as he might, Trump cannot backpedal from the irreparable damage to abortion rights that he’s already directly caused to millions of people, and even bragged about, when it suited him. Come November, we know that voters will not be fooled: President Biden and Vice President Harris are the only ticket with a record on sexual and reproductive rights that matches their words.”
Trump is responsible for some of the most egregious attacks on sexual and reproductive health care by the federal government. Here are some of the highlights:
- Trump stacked the federal courts with anti-abortion judges (including three anti-abortion Supreme Court justices)
- Trump and his administration repeatedly backed legislation to ban abortion nationwide.
- Trump imposed several policies that restricted access to sexual and reproductive health care, including Title X and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
- Trump consistently leveraged his administration to undermine access to birth control
Trump may be downplaying just how dangerous he is on abortion, but anti-abortion advocates still see him as one of the biggest players in their corner, the Washington Post reports.
Read more at the Washington Post.