ProLife Amendment Recomendations: Yes on Amendment 1 – No on Amendment 6

Florida Constitution

Personhood FL and Personhood FL ProLife PAC have taken a position on two proposed Florida constitutional amendments: Amendment 1 and Amendment 6. Personhood FL and Personhood FL ProLife PAC support Amendment 1 and oppose Amendment 6 for the reasons stated below.

Amendment 1

The proposed Amendment 1 to the FL constitution is designed to prohibit the government from requiring individuals from purchasing healthcare insurance and allowing individuals to directly pay for healthcare. This amendment may give Florida’s governor and legislature both the courage and legal foundation to exert Florida’s 10th amendment rights to protect Floridians from provisions of the Affordable Healthcare Act of 2010 and would prohibit the passage of a similar act on a statewide level.

Since the Affordable Healthcare Act does include coverage for abortions and since socialized healthcare has always led to rationing of care for seniors and the disabled, Personhood FL and Personhood ProLife PAC support Amendment 1 and encourage you to vote yes on 1.

Amendment 6

Amendment 6 is billed by several prolife organizations as an amendment that will prohibit tax funding of abortion. In reality, it would allow tax funding of abortion in the cases of rape, incest, the life or health of the mother, and where federal law requires tax funding of abortion and will NOT prohibit a single dime from funding abortions that aren’t already prohibited by state statute. (Read the complete amendment text here.) It is with profound regret that we oppose Amendment 6 and must ask you to vote NO on 6.

Personhood FL and Personhood FL ProLife PAC realize that rape is a violent act that no woman should ever have to go through. We believe that those who commit rape and incest should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, but we oppose executing a child for the crimes of her father. We do not believe that abortion is ever a compassionate solution to any “problem.” We have interviewed women who have had an abortion after rape and have not found one who was glad she had the abortion. Many said that the abortion was more traumatic than the rape! (Read their stories here.) Furthermore, we oppose forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions based on the manner in which a child was conceived. When we allow for exceptions, we weaken the prolife argument and thus prolong the killing of innocent children in the womb.

Everyone wants to see both the mother and the child survive though pregnancy and childbirth. In all cases, doctors should fight to save both lives; however, we realize that there are rare cases where saving both isn’t possible. In such cases, doctors should save the life of the mother after they have exhausted all efforts to save both lives. Such provisions are used in FL’s partial birth abortion ban (782.36(4), F.S.) but were not included in Amendment 6. Moreover the life and health of the mother clause used in this amendment is overly broad which may lead to tax funding of abortions that are not medically necessary to save the life of the mother and where no attempt has been made to save the life of the preborn child.

Amendment 6 also includes the following statement: “This constitution may not be interpreted to create broader rights to an abortion than those contained in the United States Constitution.” This section implies that the US and FL constitutions do include a “right” to abortion. We believe that this could enshrine the “right” to abortion into our constitution though limiting it to the extent that it is present in the US Constitution.

While it is clear that the US Supreme Court through a series of cases created a right to privacy that is not found in the US Constitution, it is also true that this right to privacy doesn’t allow a mother or father to kill another person. For instance, mothers have been charged with murder for drowning their toddlers in the bathtub in the privacy of their own home. Why? Because their born children are persons whose lives are protected by the US Constitution. The US Supreme Court in the Roe v Wade case decided that preborn babies weren’t persons and could therefore be killed by abortion. This is why a personhood amendment is needed to define all humans, including the preborn, as persons. The Florida ProLife Personhood Amendment will do just that. Please download and sign a copy of the petition today and help us gather the nearly 700,000 petition signatures required to obtain ballot access in 2014.

While Personhood FL and Personhood FL ProLife PAC enjoy working with the prolife organizations and legislators that support this amendment, we do oppose Amendment 6 and ask you to vote no on it. If this were legislation, it would be bad enough to allow for tax funding of abortion in certain cases and to infer that the US and Florida constitutions include a “right” to abortion, but to add this to our constitution would strengthen these deficiencies, and require another amendment to remove the provisions that allow for tax funding of abortion in certain cases and that infer that the US and FL constitutions includes a “right” to abortion. Amending the constitution requires first making it onto the ballot (either by the legislature placing it on the ballot or by collecting nearly 700,000 petition signatures), obtaining approval by the FL Supreme Court, and then obtaining 60% of the vote in a general election. If passed, we will likely never remove the exceptions or the inferred “right” to abortion clauses.

Additionally, Amendment 6 will NOT prohibit any tax funding of abortion that is not already prohibited in current FL law. As documented by Americans United for Life’s Florida Defending Life Report Card, “Florida follows the federal standard for Medicaid funding for abortions, only permitting the use of federal or state matching Medicaid funds for abortions necessary to preserve the life of the woman or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.” As such, Amendment 6 will NOT prohibit a single dime from funding abortions that aren’t already prohibited by state statute.

If this amendment passes, it will do so because Floridians believe it actually prohibits taxpayer funding of abortion as proponents claim. If it fails, we encourage the legislature to resubmit the amendment without the exceptions and without inferring that our constitutions includes a “right” to abortion. Amending our constitution to protect innocent human life is of paramount importance and should be done in a way that does not undermine the end result we seek, the legal protection of every humans from conception to natural death. We oppose Amendment 6 and ask you to vote NO on 6.