From the Orlando Sentinel:
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An e-mail sent out by Rep. Charles Van Zant this week urges his supporters to vote for Scott because he personally promised to sign into law the “Florida Right to Life Act.” Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights, added that “Scott pledged that he would assist in advancing the Florida for Life Act through both Florida’s House and Senate.”
Van Zant, a minister and an architect, added in his e-mail that he had a follow-up conversation with Scott about whether the Naples businessman would make abortion illegal in Florida: “He immediately said ‘Yes, that’s what I believe and that’s what I will do.’ He telephoned me last week to assure me that he would keep this issue before our state government,” Van Zant added.
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All of Scott's campaign ads, of course, just stress that he is some donut shop-loving guy who would bring business sense to Tallahassee, and that Democrat Alex Sink is an Obama-loving politician who blew the pension fund while daring to like Obama.
But this shows he is quietly energizing the far right with the ultimate dog whistle. Imagine the pro-lifers in Florida right now, learning that their vote in a few weeks could be what overturns a woman's right to choose. Sure, Scott as a health care executive had no problem profiting off of abortion, but if he is willing to push through this ban, it could set into motion the greatest SoCon mission ever. If the wingers weren't energized before, this will do it.
Read the reporting by Gary Fineout and you see Scott has give an endorsement of the bill all the way down to banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest. The only exception the Van Zant bill makes is for when a woman's life is at risk, and then it requires multiple doctors to sign off on the abortion.
In the past, Van Zant has filed this legislation just to see it die, but he never had a governor pushing the bill before. Should this bill come to a floor vote, the Legislature will pass it. Earlier this year, they had no problem with passing an onerous bill requiring patients to watch an ultrasound of a fetus before having an abortion. That bill passed mostly so lawmakers could embarrass Charlie Crist with the right, but a majority of members in both houses of the Legislature passed it. And all signs are that incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos will be more conservative than their predecessors.
That is why this race is the most important race for Florida Democrats to win. Alex Sink would not only be the first female governor for the state of Florida, she would be the only think standing between a woman's right to choose and a conservative Supreme Court that has just been salivating for a strong challenge to established law on abortion.
Rick Scott isn't just crooked. He's crazy. And he must be stopped.
This is a bull---t headline. As you know well know, no one person could overturn legalized fetus killing, in Florida or elsewhere. Seeing as this is, presumably a democracy, it would take the people electing a number a large number of representatives who would propose legislation banning abortion. It won't happen and to pretend otherwise is dishonest
ReplyDeleteThere are many things to criticize about Rick Scott but misleading scare tactics such as routinely used by politicians (such as Grayson and Bush, Jr) really are not part of responsible journalism
I am basically okay with abortion up to the point at which the fetus is viable, at which point it is no longer abortion but infanticide. I think this is the concensus position on abortion, although you'd never know it from the rhetoric of the wingnuts of the left and right.
As I lay out in the blog post, the votes are there is the Legislature. It is just that the will has not been there before. With our current governor, a bill requiring ultrasounds before abortions couldn't make it into statute, but it could make it through a vote of the Senate and the House.
ReplyDeleteThis law would ultimately end up before the courts, but any law could. If a governor said he was going to ban unions, would it be wrong to write a headline saying "Candidate X Would Ban Unions" even though such a law would likely by challenged? I stand by the headline because it is exactly what Scott told lawmakers he would do as governor. Fortunately, the law would be challenged. Unfortunately, we don't have the same Supreme Court in place as we did when Roe v. Wade was decided.
The laws on the books right now in Florida essentially do what you say by banning abortion in the third trimester. Scott and Van Zant are talking about going far beyond that.
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