Analysis of Amendment 4 - Part 1: It Removes Medical Protection Measures for Women & Parental Consent.
This abortion amendment will have devastating effects on women’s health and her informed choice.
At the vice-presidential debate last week, Democrat candidate, Tim Walz brought up the case of Amber Thurman, a professional nurse, who died from sepsis because, in his words, “she had to drive 600 miles into North Carolina” to get medical treatment.
In 2022, Amber Thurman was pregnant with twins. As a Georgia resident, she had been pregnant longer than the required 6 week time limit in Georgia’s heartbeat bill. Ms. Thurman traveled to North Carolina and was prescribed the abortifacients, mifepristone and misoprostol. She returned home taking the pills over a two day prescribed protocol which induced a medical abortion. Several days later, on August 18th, 2022 around 7PM, Ms. Thurman entered a Georgia hospital with vaginal bleeding, vomiting of blood, and was “passing out” according to reports. What had caused her condition was the abortion pill protocol.
It is not too uncommon for women who use the abortion drug protocol to experience these traumatic conditions particularly when taken at such a late stage of effectiveness. The FDA approved abortifacients for pregnancies up to 10 weeks. Ms. Thurman was 9 weeks pregnant with twins. Since the FDA approved RU-486 protocol, they report that roughly 20,000 women annually experience the types of violent physical reactions that Ms Thurman suffered caused by the abortifacients.
When she checked-in to the emergency room, it was immediately determined that both babies did not register a heartbeat. It took doctors over 3 hours to begin treatment of Ms. Thurman with only antibiotics. The same doctors violated their own treatment protocols not performing the immediately required D & C in combination with those antibiotics until 20 hours later. If they had done standard emergency procedure immediately, she most likely would have survived.
Instead, sepsis infection overwhelmed her. Twelve hours after admittance, she was in organ failure. Still, D & C surgery didn’t begin until after 2PM that day. She died on the operating table. The American Association of Pro-Life OBGYN’s chronicled her emergency visit here, calling the attending doctor’s treatment “malpractice.”
Now, Amber Thurman’s legacy is an inaccurate telling of her story by Democrat candidates to turn out votes in a presidential election season.
How law is currently constructed in Florida to protect women
In Florida, current law constructed regarding access to abortion is chiefly designed to protect a woman who is in a natural state of pregnancy. It also implies recognition towards the state constitution’s Article I Section 2 in regards to the personhood of the unborn. The six week limitation on legal abortions is directly connected to the development of a beating human heart in fetal maturation. In the first 24 weeks, there is an exception to the six week rule that includes if a mother’s life is determined to be in danger, or “to avert risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function…”
In the case of an emergency to protect the life of a mother after 24 weeks gestation, or viability, Florida law recognizes the baby in the womb having personhood. Viability means that the baby could survive outside the womb. After viability, doctors are ordered by law to save the mother and child with order of preference first to the mother.
Article 1 Section 2 states,
“All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, to pursue happiness, to be rewarded for industry, and to acquire, possess and protect property. No person shall be deprived of any right because of race, religion, national origin, or physical disability.”
During the oral arguments to decide if the Amendment 4 ballot initiative should be allowed to be presented to voters as written, Chief Justice, Carlos G. Muniz, asked about the personhood question and whether the proposed amendment presented conflict. He seemed miffed by the Attorney General’s counsel, Nathan Forrester, in his response to his inquiry. Forrester said, “We haven’t taken a position on this, Your Honor,” adding, “I’ll confess to you, Your Honor, this is not an argument that I have thought about.”
As a result of this exchange, the Court was pushed into the technical question of whether the language of the ballot summary was clear and explained legal effects to voters. Ultimately, the permission for the amendment to receive ballot consideration was a narrow 4-3 FL Supreme Court decision released on April Fool’s Day. The court was split with the 4 male justices in the majority and the 3 women in the minority.
The majority noted that the ballot summary presented to voters was basically “verbatim language” found in the amendment and therefore was unambiguous. Answering that question, the all-male majority ultimately declared, “There is simply no basis in the constitution for imposing a requirement for clarity on the substance of a proposed amendment.”
Yet, the women on the court were not buying the men’s legal convention. In her dissent Justice, Jamie Grosshans, wrote, “I disagree with the majority’s suggestion that if the summary is an ‘almost verbatim recitation of the text of the proposed amendment’ it cannot be misleading. The majority finds that a parroting summary cannot be affirmatively ‘mislead[ing] . . . regarding the actual text of the proposed amendment.’ That, however, fails to address if the summary is negatively misleading for omitting material legal effects.”
Justices, Meredith Sasso and Renata Francis concurred. Both Justices Sasso and Renata are on the ballot this fall for re-appointment.
Legal effects have real world consequences
Amendment 4 reads, “Accept as provided in Article 10, Section 22. No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health as determined by the patient's healthcare provider.”
The ballot summary adds this statement which is derived from Article 10, Section 22 on parental notification. “The amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
That sentence is the first legal effect. Currently in law, a 48-hour notification is required. In return, parents of minors give written consent to the physician before termination of a pregnancy of their child. However, consent provisions in Florida law would be completely removed by this amendment. It would also remove the 48-hour notification in statute because the amendment says, “No law shall prohibit, delay or restrict abortion before viability….”
Notification would still be required without a minimum timeframe, potentially leaving minor children entering a decision without family guidance. Author of Florida’s Parental Bill of Rights, Senator Erin Grall said, “This is one of those places where parental rights make a huge difference in the way in which people look at our laws and what it means and how it's going to interact with their children.”
Local attorney, Paul Westcott, who also sits on the Indian River County Hospital District board, provided a scenario how Amendment 4 most likely be interpreted in regards to a minor seeking an abortion. He said, “A minor is scared, alone, and may think this as an easy solution. She may be too far along [and] doesn’t tell mom and dad. What does that scenario look like? You have a physician, on the other hand, who's bound by the Hippocratic oath to do no harm and constrained by health and safety laws. You don't have [the constraints] with this amendment.”
For women, health protections like ‘Informed Consent’ are removed as well. Furthermore, Amendment 4 has a caveat. It reads, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health … (editor’s emphasis)”
This clause opens the ability to get an abortion up to 40 weeks. Whereas current law has absolute rules regarding health of the mother, this amendment does not define ‘health’ conditions that would necessitate an abortion.
Senator Grall said, “Right now in Florida, a woman has to be given informed consent to obtain an abortion. Also included in our statutes, it is exactly what she needs to be told, exactly what she needs to go through. The informed consent, part of that is the ultrasound. In Florida, we require an ultrasound because in order to have an abortion, the type of abortion you will have depends on how old the child is, [and therefore], here are the risks involved with this procedure.”
Like any surgery, these restrictions assure a woman is fully informed of the process to be able to consent. It is not required that the woman see the ultrasound. In an emergency procedure, second trimester pregnancy terminations are considered major surgery. And as Amber Thurman’s case showed, the RU-486 protocol can be dangerous if not managed properly.
In 2021, the FDA approved access to the drug protocol by mail because of litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Along with Planned Parenthood, the ACLU is behind the crafting of Amendment 4.
Mr. Westcott remarked, “If there's a problem that the patient had been aware of before the procedure and would have affected the decision, under normal medicine, that's the basis for a malpractice claim. A patient may argue, ‘You didn't tell me. Had I known, I would have done things differently.’ Not with this [amendment]. It's the law of the land - supreme law. So, there's a lot at stake here.”
In his concurring opinion to the majority, the Chief Justice of the FL Supreme Court agreed with Westcott’s comment. Chief Justice, Muniz wrote,
“The proposed amendment would constitutionalize restrictions on the people’s authority to use law to protect an entire class of human beings from private harm. It would cast into doubt the people’s authority even to enact protections that are prudent, compassionate, and mindful of the complexities involved. Under our system of government, it is up to the voters—not this Court—to decide whether such a rule is consistent with the deepest commitments of our political community.”
On November 5th, Florida will decide whether to reflect its political community that currently protects women, minor children and the personhood of viable unborn babies, or the interests of the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.