September 17, 2024
In the summer of 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade after five long decades. With Roe gone, abortion is no longer protected at the federal level, and states are able to enact meaningful pro-life protections. As a result, lasting pro-life work requires both national and state-by-state strategies. Since 2022, Vermont, Michigan, Kentucky, Kansas, California and Ohio have all added and voted on abortion-related ballot measures.
Come November, even more states – Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Nevada, and South Dakota – will have abortion-related issues on their respective ballots (the most on record for a single year). In Florida, specifically, there is a tremendous effort by pro-life advocates, including Florida Baptists, to call their state to stand for life at the ballot box.
Florida Baptists take action to stand for life
Currently, Florida has some of the strongest pro-life protections in the country, as it bans abortion after six weeks. With the introduction of Amendment 4, known as the “Right to Abortion Initiative,” Floridians will decide at the polls whether to uphold the six-week ban or amend the state Constitution to “establish a constitutional right to abortion” before “fetal viability.”
One More Child views this amendment as a “measure that jeopardizes the sanctity of human life” and is organizing its own initiative in response – and that includes Florida Baptists. To defeat Amendment 4, the Florida Baptist Convention is partnering with One More Child (historically known as the Florida Baptist Children’s Home), a pro-life organization that seeks “to provide Christ-centered services to vulnerable children and struggling families.”
Together, these organizations are working “to mobilize [the] faith community” and educate voters on why they should oppose the amendment. As states across the country have allowed for or expanded abortion in the years since Roe’sdemise, the pro-life community in Florida is coalescing around one clear and succinct message to ensure that doesn’t happen in their state: “Vote no.”
Florida Baptists stand for life by saying ‘vote no’
Recognizing that sometimes amendments “are worded in a way that [is] difficult to understand,” One More Child’s president Jerry Haag, in a video published on the organization’s website, offered clarity and urged Floridians to vote against the amendment. In Haag’s video, and on each entity’s website and marketing literature, there is a consistent and clear message highlighting four specific reasons why a “no” vote is the right choice for pro-life voters in Florida. A joint letter authored by the Florida Baptist Convention and One More Child outlines these four reasons in detail:
The major claim of the Right to Abortion Initiative is that its passage would “restore Roe v. Wade” and “provide a constitutional right to abortion.” However, this is factually untrue. While it would be egregious enough for Roe v. Wade to be reinstated in Florida, Amendment 4 would actually go further than Roe, “allow[ing] abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy” and “repealing all existing Florida laws and safety measures regulating abortion,” the letter says.
Furthermore, Amendment 4 would remove the requirement for parental consent if a minor seeks to obtain an abortion and would even give broad authority for any employee who works in a health care setting to approve abortions. Finally, Amendment 4 provides “no protections for the unborn child, allowing for abortion right up to the moment of birth,” according to the joint letter.
Standing for life in Florida
Florida Baptists aren’t just mobilizing at the voting booth. Like so many Southern Baptists across the country, they are laboring on behalf of people who find themselves in vulnerable situations – preborn children, yes, but also foster families, single moms, expectant mothers and fathers, human trafficking victims and more.
Many Florida Baptists see this election as a tipping point in the struggle to maintain their state’s pro-life position. If passed, Amendment 4 would dramatically alter Florida’s abortion policy and do so by welding abortion rights to the state’s constitution.
If Amendment 4 fails, the effort of Florida’s pro-life movement may stand as a model for others hoping to stem the tide of abortion rights in their state.
For more on the abortion-related state ballot initiatives for this upcoming election, click here.
