Photo via Office of the Governor
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy on Thursday. The law goes into effect on July 1.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Thursday that bans abortions after 15 weeks.
The law — which includes no exemptions for cases of rape, incest or human trafficking — will go into effect on July . The few exceptions include if an abortion is necessary to prevent serious injury to a mother or save the mother’s life.
DeSantis signed the bill before a crowd Kissimmee’s Nación De Fe church in Kissimmee. DeSantis told supporters he was there to protect those who cannot defend themselves.
“This is a time where these babies have beating hearts. They can move, they can taste, they can see, they can feel pain,” DeSantis said. “It is the most significant protection for life that’s been enacted in this state in a generation.”
DeSantis also used the opportunity to spread falsehoods about the abortion debate in the United States. In signing the extremely restrictive bill, he could not defend the act on its own merits. Instead. he pointed to a boogeyman of Democrats who are seeking abortions in the the ninth month of pregnancy, something that has never been legal in the US.
“If you look what’s going on in certain segments of our society…they are now taking the position that babies can be aborted up to the ninth month,” DeSantis said about “the far left.”
Florida law currently allows abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson said at the signing that he, DeSantis and other lawmakers must protect lives. He also said that abortions kill children and change the lives of parents forever.
“Every unborn child is a special and unique human being deserving of protection from harm and the chance to grow up in a loving family,” Simpson said.
Progress Florida and physicians with the Committee to Protect Health Care denounced DeSantis for signing the law.
Amy Weintraub, reproductive rights program director for Progress Florida, said that the decision of when to have a child or whether to have one is personal and consequential.
“For generations, we have relied on the right to abortion to make decisions about childbearing and how it will impact our things like jobs, continued schooling, mental and physical health, and our family,” Weintraub said. “Floridians deserve better.”
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