The abortion debate is heating up in Florida ahead of a state supreme court hearing next week over whether to allow on the ballot in November a measure that would enshrine the right to abortion in Florida’s constitution. 

The petition, led by an abortion advocacy group called Floridians Protecting Freedom, seeks to guarantee abortion access by amending the state’s constitution. The group recently announced it had gathered more than 900,000 signatures in the effort to put the initiative before voters — more than required by law.

Democrats and pro-abortion groups have been eager to get the topic on the ballot, as abortion has so far been a winning issue for them in all seven states where it’s been tried — even in more conservative states, including Ohio, Kansas, and Kentucky. 

Florida’s supreme court will begin hearing arguments on February 7 on the wording of the measure, which states, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

Abortion is currently legal in Florida up to 15 weeks into a pregnancy. Although Governor DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban or “heartbeat law” last year, it is not yet in effect. Planned Parenthood notes that because of “ongoing litigation, the status of the law may change quickly.”

Opponents of Florida’s petition, including the state’s attorney general, Ashley Moody, say its language is too vague and misleading — especially because it doesn’t precisely define “viability.” Groups fighting the measure on the ground and in court tell the Sun that it is too expansive.

“Just because a group of people put something together, it still has to meet the minimum requirements of our constitution,” a state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Katie Daniel, tells the Sun, adding that one requirement is truthfulness. “People have to understand what they are voting on. And so that’s one of the big questions that the Florida Supreme Court is going to be weighing this week.” 

The measure doesn’t make it clear that it “would allow abortion anytime in a pregnancy” and that it would prevent the state from inspecting and regulating abortion clinics, she adds. 

The measure would make Florida “one of the most extreme states, it would allow for abortion through all nine months with almost no oversight. It would make it impossible to penalize somebody who is performing abortions in violation of the law, because it would get rid of most of our laws,” Mrs. Daniel adds. “And we are a state where our abortion industry has a law-following problem. Last year, 25 percent of the clinics failed their inspections and were fined.”

The vague language makes it seem more modest than it really is, she adds, and the abortion industry is not including more specific language “because they know people would not support it.” The measure’s wording is an attempt to override the state’s legislature and the democratic process, she adds. 

“I think the abortion industry thinks that they have cracked the code that they don’t need to go into the legislature,” she says. “And we hope that the Florida supreme court sees through that, and they see that this is very clearly misleading language.” 

Florida’s Right to Life is also fighting the petition and believes “the state’s highest court will see through the deception that is the pro-abortion amendment to the Florida constitution and toss the verbiage,” its president, Lynda Bell, tells the Sun. 

The group behind the measure, Floridians Protecting Freedom, declined to comment to the Sun beyond its previous written statements. The group has said that “the proposed amendment is clear and precise in limiting government interference with abortion ‘before viability.’” 

“Viability in the abortion context has always meant the stage of fetal development when the life of a fetus is sustainable outside the womb through standard medical measures,” the group wrote, adding that courts have defined it that way as well. 

“Voters know what viability means, and they will see right through this effort to silence their voice,” the organizers said.