By Dave Andrusk0
A three-judge panel for the 1st District Court of Appeals yesterday heard arguments on the question whether an injunction issued last summer on Florida’s 24 hour waiting period will stay in effect or if it can be lifted.
“The people of Florida did not intend to prevent the Legislature from passing a reasonable law, one that ensures that pregnant women have a reasonable amount of time to make the decision whether to have an abortion,” Denise Harle, deputy solicitor general, told the judges.
American Civil Liberties Union of Florida argued the law “blatantly” violates the state Constitution. “The people of Florida care deeply about preventing unwarranted governmental interference with their private decisions, and that is exactly what this law does,” said ACLU attorney Julia Kaye.
According to the Miami Herald’s Michael Auslen
The judges will decide only whether the injunction can stay in place. The ultimate validity of the waiting period law is tied up in a lawsuit still in circuit court in Tallahassee.
The appellate judges — Bradford Thomas, Susan Kelsey and William Stone — indicated they may send the injunction back to the lower court. They raised concerns that the original order by Judge Charles Dodson of the 2nd Circuit Court might not spell out enough evidence to warrant an injunction and said its arguments aren’t as clear as they could be.
If the judges order Dodson to reconsider or throw out the injunction, the waiting period could be enforced for the first time since July 2, the day after it went into effect.
The ACLU challenged the law June 10–one day after Gov. Rick Scott signed HB 633 into law–on behalf of Gainesville-based abortion clinic Bread and Roses Women’s Health Center. What followed was a flurry of legal maneuvers, as NRL News Today explained in detail.
The key issue is the ACLU’s argument that the law is in conflict with the state Constitution’s right to privacy.
First a distinction. According to NRLC’s Department of State Legislation, 31 states have waiting periods. They include 18 hours (in one state), 24 hours (in 23 states), 48 hours (in three states), while four states have a 72 hour waiting period, with one more scheduled to go into effect this fall.
So Florida’s 24-hour period of reflection is typical, with a slight wrinkle. As Elizabeth Nash of the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute told WGCU’s Nick Evans, Florida’s law requires that the abortionist provide the woman with information at least 24 hours before the abortion to ensure an informed consent. In other words there are two trips, which, again according to Guttmacher, is the case in the laws of 13 states.
It’s this second trip that pro-abortionists, such as ACLU lawyer Rene Paradis, argue violates the right to privacy in Florida’s state constitution.
In arguing before Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Francis, Blaine Winship, special counsel to the attorney general, offered a number of reasons why HB 633 does not violate the right of privacy. To begin with, he noted that there was nothing in the law that removed or deprived a woman of her right to have an abortion.
“The state wields the police power to protect the health and safety of the people,” he told Judge Francis. “The question of whether there is a 24-hour wait for her to contemplate the full impact and ramifications of her decision is obviously what we’ve been talking about.”
He added, according to WGCU’s Evans, “It’s what the Legislature aimed to try to protect, and in that regard, women will still have their privacy, they’ll still have the opportunity to have an abortion if they want to, the only question is whether there will be a twenty four hour waiting period or not.”
Moreover, “Winship pointed to a 2006 Florida Supreme ruling that upheld the informed-consent provision in a 1997 law, the ‘Women’s Right to Know’ Act, which required doctors to explain the medical risks of abortion and to obtain consent from women seeking them,” Evans reported.