TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — Former Florida governor and current U.S. Sen. Rick Scott suggested Monday that he is no longer standing by the Sunshine State’s law banning abortion on babies with detectable heartbeats, instead determining that a 15-week cutoff point is “where the state’s at.”
On April 1, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution contains no “right” to abortion, and therefore 15-week and heartbeat-based abortion bans previously signed into law by current Gov. Ron DeSantis could take effect. It also ruled that a ballot initiative to add such a right may be voted on in November.
The former ruling, along with a similar development out of Arizona, sparked a flurry of arguments over the politics of abortion during an election year, with former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump leading the charge to confine the debate to the state level and “straighten out” state pro-life laws deemed too strong to be politically popular.
On Monday, The Hill spoke with Scott, who is currently running for reelection to his Senate seat and endorsed the heartbeat law last year.
Now, however, Scott says that “if I was writing a bill, I’d think that 15 weeks with the limitations” for rape, incest, and life of the mother “is where the state’s at. I think it’s important we do what there’s consensus” for. Asked specifically about the heartbeat law, Scott declined to answer and reiterated only that “If I was writing a bill, I think 15 weeks is where the state is.”
“I’ve been pro-life, and I think we need to continue to the importance of being pro-life and I think the other thing is we ought to be very clear that Democrats are barbaric,” the senator also said. “They want — they’ve already voted to allow abortion up until the moment of birth.”
The Hill also noted that Scott said last week he opposes the pro-abortion ballot initiative and agrees with Trump’s call to keep abortion policy in the states. While in the Senate, Scott has held a pro-life voting record.
DeSantis, who has defended the heartbeat law from GOP detractors since signing it, has predicted the abortion amendment will fail “once voters figure out how radical” it is. Early in the governor’s unsuccessful campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, his pollster, Ryan Tyson, argued to party donors that electoral fears about the issue were unfounded because strongly standing for life would only be a “kill shot” on Republicans who were poor candidates for additional, unrelated reasons.
Formerly a swing state, Florida is now solidly red, with Republicans enjoying a lead of 889,569 in voter registration. Scott won his first election to his current seat in 2018 by just 10,033 votes. Fellow Florida Republican Marco Rubio won his latest reelection by more than a million four years later. Scott is currently expected to win reelection.