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Republican presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks to guests during the Scott County Fireside Chat at the Tanglewood Hills Pavilion on December 18, 2023 in Bettendorf, Iowa. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis declared Sunday, October 6 to be “Protect Life Sunday,” once again putting the spotlight on defending the preborn ahead of a critical vote on a ballot initiative in November to enshrine abortion-on-demand in the Florida Constitution.

The proclamation declares that “all lives, born and unborn, are a valuable gift from God and worthy of our protection;” that the equal and unalienable right to life endowed by God has been recognized since the founding of the United States; that Florida is “committed to welcoming and supporting parents and families as they raise children” through services such as the Hope Florida initiative; and that “generations, we have set aside days for prayer and fasting to thank God for our many blessings and to ask for his favor on pivotal issues facing our country and state.”

On “this Protect Life Sunday, as we gather with one voice, we pray that Florida would continue to lead the way to protect, support, and value innocent life at all stages, especially the unborn,” the proclamation declares.

The proclamation comes amid heated campaigns for and against Amendment 4, the so-called “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion.” 

It states that “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.” If enacted, it would require abortion to be allowed for any reason before fetal “viability” and render post-“viability” bans effectively meaningless by exempting any abortion that an abortionist claims is for “health” reasons. If successful, it would overturn Florida’s heartbeat-based abortion ban.

The amendment ostensibly says that it “does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.” But many, such as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, have warned that “there’s a difference between consent,” which is what current law requires, “and notification. Notification is after the fact. The consent is obviously a condition precedent. They did that because they know going after parents’ rights is a vulnerability.”

The abortion lobby has had great success using false claims that pro-life laws are dangerous to stoke fear about the issue among the general public, most visibly in the area of state constitutional amendments enshrining “rights” to abortion immune from future legislation. 

Pro-lifers have either failed to enact pro-life amendments or stop pro-abortion ones in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Vermont, and Ohio, prompting much conversation among pro-lifers about the need to develop new strategies to protect life at the ballot box, as well as a debate among Republicans over the political ramifications of continuing to take a clear pro-life position.

Constitutional amendments require 60 percent of the vote in Florida (as opposed to the simple-majority threshold in states such as Michigan and Ohio), and polls have disagreed as to whether the amendment can reach it. 

The outcome may come down to how well pro-lifers can disseminate the actual fact of what Amendment 4 does. Polling by public opinion firm NextGen Polling found that while 57 percet supported the amendment overall, 64 percent of Republican respondents, 34 percent of Democrats, and 43 percent of Independents were less likely to support it when informed it could relax standards of who actually performs the procedure to non-physicians.

Between that, DeSantis’ work against the amendment (including the launch of a political committee dedicated to defeating it, lobbying other Florida Republicans to speak up, and investigating potential fraudulent petition signatures used to advance it), and the GOP’s unprecedented million-count voter registration advantage in the Sunshine State, both sides are deeply invested in the outcome of Florida’s abortion battle this fall, which will either continue or break that trend.

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