Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson said the state legislature will consider whether to move forward on a bill similar to one in Texas that bans most abortions, after the Supreme Court decided not to block it.
Simpson, a Republican who has served in the state senate since 2012, said Thursday that legislators will introduce a similar measure in the upcoming legislative session, WFLA reported.
"When the Supreme Court goes out and makes a decision like this, it clearly is going to send a signal to all the states that are interested in banning abortions or making it more restrictive to have an abortion in their state, it’s certainly going to make us take a look at those issues,” Simpson said.
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The Texas law took effect Wednesday and bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. It has unique enforcement provisions allowing private citizens, rather than state officials, to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.
At a news conference in West Palm Beach Thursday, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he supports pro-life legislation.
"What they did in Texas was interesting, and I haven't really been able to look enough about it, they've basically done this through private right of action, so it's a little bit different than how a lot of these debates have gone, so we'll have to look, I'm going to look more significantly at it," DeSantis said. "I do think that at the end of the day the science on this has been very powerful now for a long time, you go back 40 years ago what people thought versus what they can see now, very very powerful, so I've always been somebody that really does support protections for life, as best as we can do."
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Democratic Florida Sen. Annette Taddeo, from Miami-Dade, called any such legislation a "rapist bill of rights."
"Understand what Florida Republicans want to do: They want to give rapists the right to sue their victims to stop them from getting an abortion - and to be able to collect money from their victims who try to have an abortion," Taddeo said in a statement. "If Republicans get their way, rapists will have more power over this decision than the victim."
NBC 6 political analyst Carlos Curbelo said this is an issue that is important to the base of both political parties.
"There are a lot of middle-of-the-road voters who don't have very passionate views on abortion. But people who are very conservative and people who are very liberal are very passionate about this issue and when it is being debated or discussed, those voters it captures their attention and motivates them to turn out," he said.
