By Dave Andrusko

Pro-life Gov. Rick Scott
First, the bottom line.
If Florida Gov. Rick Scott signs HB 33, it will mean most of all that women will have 24 hours to contemplate whether to have an abortion but also that the Sunshine state will join 24 other states that require that women pause to reflect at least 24 hours before making that fateful decision.
Last Friday, North Carolina joined Utah, Missouri, and South Dakota as states that provide for a 72-hour period of reflection before women finalize a life and death decision. Oklahoma’s identical waiting period goes into effect in November.
The measure has huge support in both the Florida Senate—where it passed 26-13—and the Florida House—which gave its approval on a vote of 77-41
Barbara Zdraveck is the CEO of the Planned Parenthood affiliate in Sarasota. Presumably playing off of the bill’s time requirement, Zdraveck has asked the governor to speak with a Planned Parenthood doctor [aka abortionist] and then “reflect” on HB33 for 24 hours before deciding whether to sign the bill.
Here are a couple of thoughts on that, inspired by an insightful letter to the editor of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune written by Jim Styer, President, Sarasota-Manatee Right to Life.
“This is like asking Scott to confer with a smoker, then wait 24 hours before acting on a bill to raise the cigarette tax,” Styer wrote. Planned Parenthood is a $1 billion-plus “non-profit” whose “single biggest income producer is abortion.”
Does anyone think for a moment Planned Parenthood will, of its own accord, tell the governor it’s a good idea to cap this fiscal spigot, in any way, no matter how limited?
Styer puts the waiting period in its proper context:
Florida mandates waits of three days before getting a marriage license, 20 days before divorce and three days before buying a handgun. Rarely is any surgery done the same day as the consultation. So why not a short wait before an abortion, certainly an irreversible decision?
Why not, indeed—unless you are the largest “provider” of abortions in the world?