Judge will soon decide whether to block Florida's 15-week abortion ban - POLITICO

Jun 28, 2022

The Florida case has a new sense of urgency after the Supreme Court last week struck down the landmark 1973 Roe v.

Wade, the landmark case that upheld abortion rights for the past 50 years.

Florida’s abortion measure is mirrored on the Mississippi law at the heart of the Supreme Court case that overturned Roe and Dobbs v.

DeSantis on Friday, just hours after the high court issued its opinion, said Florida will expand “pro-life protections” but provided no details.

Tien said most people who have an abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy are struggling economically, living in poverty, facing serious medical complications or they are involved in a violent intimate relationship.

The law is set to go into effect on Friday, but the judge in the case, Circuit Judge John Cooper, said he will announce his ruling on Thursday over whether to temporarily halt it as the case winds through the court system.

Lawyers for the office of state Attorney General Ashley Moody told Cooper they are packing the case with information with an expectation that the outcome will set a new precedent.

Although Florida’s Supreme Court previously cited the Florida privacy right in shooting down earlier abortion restrictions, the makeup of the current state high court has dramatically shifted to the right

Conservatives currently dominate the state Supreme Court after DeSantis appointed three of them to the bench, and abortion rights groups fear the court could interpret the privacy clause differently and uphold the 15 week ban

Lawyers for the state, however, have said the privacy right was not meant to govern abortion laws