(Oregon Right to Life) — Florida voters on Tuesday night rejected a radical pro-abortion amendment that would have legalized abortion up to birth and made Florida an abortion destination in the largely pro-life southern United States. The pro-life victory marks the first time voters have rejected a pro-abortion ballot initiative since the rollback of Roe v. Wade.
Shortly after polls closed in the Sunshine State Tuesday night, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that voters voted against Amendment 4, a pro-abortion proposal to create a permanent “right” to abortion in the Florida state constitution.
“By rejecting Amendment 4, Floridians saw through the lies and deceptions of the abortion industry-backed effort to legalize late-term abortion, remove parental consent and open the door to force taxpayer-funded abortions” Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said in a Tuesday night press release.
Tobias said DeSantis should have “special recognition for taking the abortion industry head on and setting a new standard for what it means to be a Pro-Life Champion as a state’s chief executive.”
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“The demise of pro-abortion Amendment 4 is a momentous victory for life in Florida and for our entire country,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a press release put out by Protect Women Florida Action. “Thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis, when we wake up tomorrow, babies with beating hearts will still be protected in the free state of Florida.”
National Right to Life worked in conjunction with Florida Right to Life and additional pro-life organizations to rally the pro-life vote against Amendment 4 in the Sunshine State. According to its press release, NRLC’s Victory Fund made “4,481,988 voter contacts through streaming services, peer-to-peer texting, voice calls, door-to-door conversations and other online formats.”
“The pro-abortion lobby outspent the pro-life organizations more than 2-1 and still, in spite of the barrage of false claims about Florida’s heartbeat bill, they were defeated” Florida Right to Life president Lynda Bell stated in the NRLC press release. “We were grossly outspent, worked countless hours, drove across the state of Florida speaking out against this vile amendment and our grassroots team was second to none.”
“The law that safeguards more than 50,000 lives annually will remain,” Dannenfelser said in the Protect Women Florida Action press release. “Florida is a beacon to the places in this country which still allow abortion after the point a baby can feel pain and the model for how the pro-life movement will win future ballot measure fights.”
“In a world where the abortion lobby has a hold of our major institutions, every Republican should take note of the leadership and courage that Ron DeSantis exhibited to expose Big Abortion’s agenda and defeat life-ending amendments,” Dannenfelser said.
