TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CN) — The Florida Supreme Court upheld the state’s 15-week abortion ban on Monday, clearing the way for a newer 6-week ban to go into effect in 30 days.
In a 6-1 decision, justices ruled the Florida Constitution’s privacy clause does not “guarantee the right to an abortion through the end of the second trimester.”
“Those legal arguments on the privacy clause’s meaning are, in our view, distinct from the serious moral, ethical, and policy issues that are implicated in the subject matter of this case,” Justice Jamie Grosshans wrote for the majority. “After considering each of these sources and consistent with longstanding principles of judicial deference to legislative enactments, we conclude there is no basis under the privacy clause to invalidate the statute.”
Florida now joins several adjacent southern states in banning abortion at 15 weeks or less, legislative moves taken after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, leaving the once-federally protected constitutional right to the states. Florida’s 15-week ban mirrors the Mississippi law upheld in that decision by the nation’s high court.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appointed five of the six justices who upheld the law. One of those justices, Charles Canady, is the husband of state Representative Jennifer Canady, who sponsored the 15-week ban bill.
The governor’s office nor Planned Parenthood of Florida and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which brought the case, immediately responded for requests for comment.
The Republican-led Florida Legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis passed the 15-week ban in April 2022. House Bill 5 bans most abortions after 15 weeks, except if necessary to save the life of the mother or if the fetus has significant complications to surviving. It does not make exceptions for rape and incest. A previous law allowed abortions until 24 weeks.
In June, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Reproductive Rights and a handful of health care providers sued the state to block the law, arguing an amendment to the state constitution ensures individual privacy rights like abortion.
Section 23 of the Florida Constitution, passed in 1980, states that “every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as otherwise provided herein.”
The Florida Supreme Court had relied on the provision to block other attempts in the past to chip away at abortion rights, such as requiring minors to have parental consent for the procedure or mandating a 24-hour waiting period.
A Leon County judge initially blocked the law with a temporary injunction. A state appeals court reversed that decision and the case moved to the state Supreme Court.
Last year, the Florida Legislature and DeSantis went further and passed a 6-week ban. That law was paused from taking effect until the state high court ruled on the 15-week ban.
Meanwhile, abortion rights groups have gathered enough petition signatures to land the question in front of voters in November as a ballot measure. The state Supreme Court also ruled on the ballot language of that initiative on Monday, approving it in a 5-2 decision.
Floridians Protecting Freedom spearheaded Amendment 3, which states an abortion ban would only apply when the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually at 24 weeks.
"Except as provided in Article X, 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 amendment reads.
The initiative needs the support of at least 60% of voters.
In the majority’s decision on the 15-week ban, Grosshans wrote the Florida Constitution’s privacy clause “does not explicitly reference abortion at all.”
“The decision to have an abortion may have been made in solitude, but the procedure itself included medical intervention and required both the presence and intrusion of others,” she wrote. "The debate — as framed to the public — overwhelmingly associated the privacy clause’s terms with concerns related to government surveillance and disclosure of private information to the public.”
A concurring opinion by Justice Meredith Sasso took a different tack, arguing Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers did not have standing to advocate for the privacy rights of their clients.
“Traditionally, this court considered as well-settled the rule that one who is not himself denied some constitutional right or privilege cannot be heard to raise constitutional questions on behalf of some other person who may at some future time be affected,” Sasso wrote.
The lone dissenter, Justice Jorge Labarga, wrote the majority’s decision “recedes from decades of this court’s precedent.” He also questioned the majority’s assertion that an abortion requires medical intervention, which does not make the procedure a purely personal decision.
“In the interest of patient privacy, medical matters, including countless forms of medical procedures, are broadly afforded confidentiality protections with narrowly tailored exceptions,” Labarga wrote.
Labarga also took issue with the public’s understanding of the state’s privacy clause.
“The majority correctly recognizes the significant impact of Roe, but stops short of the reality that Roe, having fundamentally changed the landscape of abortion rights on a national scale by redefining the scope of the right of privacy, was key to the public understanding of the right of privacy,” he wrote. “During the 7-year interval between Roe and Florida voters’ adoption of the right of privacy, I find it inconceivable that Americans — and more specifically, Floridians — were not aware that the right of privacy encompassed the right to an abortion.”
According to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, doctors performed 84,052 abortions from January 2023 to January 2024. The vast majority occurred in the first trimester.
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