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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Women's Rights / The War On Women / Proposed Florida for Life Act is Really Ridiculously Unconstitutional

Proposed Florida for Life Act is Really Ridiculously Unconstitutional

by Imani Gandy (ABL)|  February 14, 20133:24 pm| 16 Comments

This post is in: The War On Women, Vagina Outrage, Women's Rights Are Human Rights, Clown Shoes

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State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/9235Florida Senator (R-Obvs.) Charles van Zant introduces the Florida Life Act year after year after year. I knew that it was a wildly unconstitutional bill, but I’d never realized just how unconstitutional it was until I read it just now, and boy howdy — it’s so unconstitutional it actually made me laugh out loud.

HB 395 prohibits abortion (making performing one a felony); it prohibits operating abortion services (so running an abortion clinic would be a felony); it sets out medical standards of care for physicians (the sort of thing that probably should be left to medical professionals, not wingnut politicians); and it relieves any conscientious objector from participating in the termination of a pregnancy (the sort of thing that, again, should be left to employers (hospitals and clinics and the like), and not wingnut politicians.)

The bill also has pages of mumbo jumbo about how all human life comes from the Creator; how “personal liberty is not a license to kill an innocent human life under any provision of the United States Constitution”; how Florida is going to do what it wants because self-government, that’s why; and how the Supreme Court is a bunch of stupid-heads whose decisions in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe are so wrong that Florida shouldn’t even have to pay attention to them (although the bill does politely ask the Court to overturn those decisions, sua sponte, I guess.)

It’s basically a “screw you, you’re not my real dad” bill, which is cute because the Supremacy Clause is your daddy, Florida.

As Robin Marty of RH Reality Check points out,

There comes a time when you have to wonder what it will take to make a politician finally let go of a bill that is shot down year after year, regardless of how many abortion opponents are in the legislature.

Indeed.

[image via] [cross-posted at ABLC]
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16Comments

  1. 1.

    yam

    February 14, 2013 at 3:27 pm

    The bill also has pages of mumbo jumbo about how all human life comes from the Creator; how “personal liberty is not a license to kill an innocent human life under any provision of the United States Constitution”

    Trayvon Martin would have liked that line…

  2. 2.

    MikeJ

    February 14, 2013 at 3:32 pm

    @yam: Why can’t women stand their ground against a blastocyst?

  3. 3.

    nancydarling

    February 14, 2013 at 3:33 pm

    Imani, We’ve got the same shit going down in the Arkansas lege. Repubs took control of the legislature for the first time since reconstruction and they have lots of pent up stuff to deal with—uppity women, uppity poor folks both black and white.

    Google Jason Rapert. Isn’t that an unfortunate surname? He has backed down from trans-vag probes and made a few exceptions—as long as he gets to decide what the exceptions are.

    The Dems are dysfunctional in this state. All those years of control and we are still a plantation economy except Ol’ Massa is now the Waltons, Tysons, etc.

    We are plagued by fundie bible thumpers. What’s Florida’s excuse?

  4. 4.

    Certified Mutant Enemy

    February 14, 2013 at 3:37 pm

    @nancydarling:

    Rapert – the least popular character in the Dilbert.

  5. 5.

    liberal

    February 14, 2013 at 3:48 pm

    @MikeJ:
    Heh.

  6. 6.

    nancydarling

    February 14, 2013 at 3:49 pm

    I should add that Rapert’s bill will likely make it through the lege with even a few Dems voting for it. Then there will be a lawsuit, costing us money and it will be thrown out. Rapert’s legal advice is coming from that Liberty outfit and they are hearing testimony from a woman or two who say the 13 hours their anencephalic babies lived were the best hours of their lives.

  7. 7.

    burnspbesq

    February 14, 2013 at 3:52 pm

    There comes a time when you have to wonder what it will take to make a politician finally let go of a bill that is shot down year after year,

    Not being re-elected or dying. SATSQ.

  8. 8.

    burnspbesq

    February 14, 2013 at 3:55 pm

    @MikeJ:

    Using a gun against a blastocyst might have certain unintended consequences. No matter how loudly the woman chants the Stand Your Ground Mantra.

  9. 9.

    Zifnab25

    February 14, 2013 at 4:32 pm

    There comes a time when you have to wonder what it will take to make a politician finally let go of a bill that is shot down year after year, regardless of how many abortion opponents are in the legislature.

    Are you kidding? This is the kind of Don Quixote legislation that drives the anti-choice movement. I’m surprised the guy didn’t slip in a law against mentioning abortion in public school or on broadcast television.

    Laws like this aren’t intended to pass. They’re intended to be a rallying cry that lets even a member of the majority party claim victimized martyrdom credentials. “Look at how brave I am! Fighting the good fight, even though everyone else in government is so unreasonable! Why doesn’t everyone love babies as much as I do?! I’m the only one you can trust, so send me your votes and your money.”

  10. 10.

    Chris

    February 14, 2013 at 4:35 pm

    @Zifnab25:

    That, plus, if they ever do finally outlaw abortion, what are they going to have to bitch about? “Social issues” need to remain unresolved in order to keep turning out the rubes at every election.

  11. 11.

    demz taters

    February 14, 2013 at 4:40 pm

    @nancydarling: Same as Arizona’s – it’s where ossified, bitter right wingers go to die. It’s just that in Florida they have a lawn to yell at you to get off of.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    February 14, 2013 at 5:02 pm

    @nancydarling:

    Rapert’s legal advice is coming from that Liberty outfit and they are hearing testimony from a woman or two who say the 13 hours their anencephalic babies lived were the best hours of their lives.

    I have no problem with women who choose (there’s that naughty word again) not to abort their anencephalic fetuses. It’s when they decide that their personal choice has to be legally forced on other women that I start calling them callous assholes.

  13. 13.

    nancydarling

    February 14, 2013 at 5:16 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I have no problem with it either. I just think it’s nuts and cruel and a sign of moral cowardice not to make the harder, kinder decision and leave it up to “God’s will” instead.

  14. 14.

    russell

    February 14, 2013 at 5:27 pm

    Florida Senator (R-Obvs.) Charles van Zant

    didn’t he used to be in lynyrd skynyrd?

  15. 15.

    burnspbesq

    February 14, 2013 at 5:58 pm

    @russell:

    Don’t think so. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about this clown.

    Charles Van Zant (born November 24, 1943 in Jacksonville, Florida) is a Representative in the House of Representatives of the U.S. state of Florida. He received his Bachelors degree from the University of Florida in 1968. In addition, he received his Masters in Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Doctorate in Theology from the Western Baptist Theological Seminary.

    ‘Bout what I expected.

  16. 16.

    WereBear

    February 14, 2013 at 9:52 pm

    @nancydarling: I stumbled across the genetic nightmare which is Mormon polygamous inbreeding, and scared myself with the Wikipedia article on Trisomy 13.

    This is fine with the men who never care for children anyway; of any level of wellness. In fact, one of the sickest things about the Warren Jeff’s type of fundamentalism is how women are blamed for everything. How handy!

    It’s like The Handmaid’s Tale, only filmed by Rob Zombie.

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