Former Florida Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson, now in private practice, filed the lawsuit on behalf of pro-life individuals in Florida.
The plaintiffs claim the people that gathered signatures for a petition to get the abortion amendment (Amendment 4) on the ballot turned in "fictitious, forged, illegally obtained, or otherwise invalid signatures." When all these are removed from consideration, the plaintiffs believe that Amendment 4 "failed to reach the constitutionally required number of signatures" for the November ballot.
Responding to this on the Washington Watch program, John Stemberger of Florida-based Liberty Counsel Action said this is a very serious matter.
"This is a group of mercenaries that traveled around the country," said Stemberger. "Wherever it pays the most per petition they go all around the country, they don't really care about the issues, they just gather these petitions, and it was widespread fraud."
Pro-abortion people and organizations are wanting people to vote "yes," saying this is the way to go about things now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade and handed the issue of abortion back to the states.
Floridians Protecting Freedom, the political committee supporting Amendment 4, has denied wrongdoing and argued the petitions used to get placement on the Nov. 5 ballot were already validated by Elections Supervisors and Florida’s Department of State. They accuse Gov. Ron DeSantis of deploying state taxpayer resources to fight abortion because he is personally against it.
Stemberger says Amendment 4 is not what it seems.
“It's way too extreme. This is a full-throated pro-abortion amendment. It's very deceptive because the first part talks about viability. It sounds like the state can regulate abortion after viability, which would be kind of a Roe versus Wade structure, but then it says, 'or for any health reason.' Health is not defined. Healthcare provider is not defined."
Abortion with no doctor required
Stemberger went on to say that Amendment 4 would not even require that a physician perform the abortion.
“There's no parental consent. There is the possibility that there could be taxpayer funding of abortion. That's going to be in the financial estimation statement. So, this is really an abortion on demand for any health reason through nine months of pregnancy, even when an unborn child can feel pain. It couldn't be more radical. It's deceptive because it seems like using the word viability is a reasonable restriction, but it's really not."
Florida requires 60 percent approval for a ballot initiative to pass.
Stemberger does not believe the pro-abortion side has the votes, but even if they did, Stemberger argues it "could be struck down because of the serious nature of the way these petitions were gathered."
