NBC News says Florida has failed to include abortion access protections in the state constitution, essentially upholding the state’s six-week ban.
Amendment 4 did not reach the 60% of votes needed to pass, according to NBC News. The ballot initiative faced stiff opposition from the start from Republican lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration. In 2023, as abortion rights advocates collected petition signatures, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a brief with the state Supreme Court urging the justices to prevent the proposed amendment from being presented to voters would be presented. The court ultimately ruled that the proposal could appear on the ballot while upholding Florida’s six-week ban.
The DeSantis administration then waged a campaign of intimidation and disinformation against Amendment 4. The administration oversaw the launch of a website full of misleading details about the proposal, deployed state police to question people who signed the petition, and tried to to question those who had signed the petition. TV stations must remove ads that support Amendment 4.
Republican lawmakers also successfully pushed for revised wording alongside the amendment that suggested a negative impact on state taxpayers, which Amendment 4 proponents called inaccurate and misleading. Three weeks after Election Day, the DeSantis administration released a report accusing the ballot initiative organizers of using fraudulent signatures, and an anti-abortion group sued to have the measure rescinded based on that report.
Florida is the first state to fail an abortion rights ballot amendment since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
DeSantis had warned that passage of Amendment 4 would mean “the end of the pro-life movement.” But despite Republicans’ relentless attacks on the proposal, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sought to distance himself from the extreme abortion views of his fellow Florida Republicans; at one point he even left open the possibility that he would support Amendment 4, although he later backtracked after heavy criticism from his party.
When pressed by a reporter on Tuesday about how he voted on Amendment 4, Trump snapped and said, “Stop talking about that.”
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
