- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law banning abortion after 6 weeks of pregnancy.
- He signed with almost no fanfare, especially compared to the crowd for his 15-week ban in 2022.
- Polling show most Americans think abortion should be legal in most or all cases.
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis enacted a 15-week abortion ban for people who are pregnant in April 2022, it was to much fanfare, with the governor surrounded by supporters and television crews.
“This will represent the most significant protection for life in this state in a generation,” Florida’s governor said at the time.
Soon after, in June 2022, the US Supreme Court allowed his 15-week abortion ban to go through after it overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that granted federal protections for people in the US seeking an abortion.
A year later, when approving an even more restrictive abortion ban — this one limiting professionals from performing the procedure to six weeks of gestation — DeSantis signed the bill in the dead of night, away from the media and spotlight.
The 15-week abortion ban is still heading before the Florida Supreme Court, and if it’s struck down, the six-week ban won’t go into effect either.
DeSantis is expected to announce a run for president in the coming months. The Republican Party’s platform is widely supportive of restricting access to abortion. So why didn’t the governor arrange a similar spectacle when signing it into law instead, instead assembling only a small group and putting out a press release near midnight?
The abortion issue is bad for Republicans
Taking polling into consideration perhaps explains DeSantis’ decision. According to Pew Research, the majority of Americans think that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, making it difficult for DeSantis to come out on top in the court of public opinion after signing any bills restricting access to such care.
For example, when it comes to DeSantis’ six-week restriction, according to recent polling from the Public Religion Research Institute, 63{dec8eed80f8408bfe0c8cb968907362b371b4140b1eb4f4e531a2b1c1a9556e5} of Americans — nearly two-thirds — said they were against laws that ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat could be detected (typically around the six-week mark).
And Gen Z is now increasingly politically motivated by their concerns about restrictions on abortion, which recent polling has found is the political issue that they say concerned them most when voting.
DeSantis also enacted the six-week abortion ban less than a week after a federal judge in Texas, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, struck down FDA approval of an abortion-inducing medication, leading to an outpouring of backlash against the judge. The PRRI poll found that 72{dec8eed80f8408bfe0c8cb968907362b371b4140b1eb4f4e531a2b1c1a9556e5} of Americans said they’re against laws that outlaw using or receiving of FDA-approved medications used to induce an abortion.
Seeing the recent backlash against Kacsmaryk, it makes sense why DeSantis would choose to avoid publicly signing the six-week ban in order to avoid a similar fate.
Democrats have run on abortion and won
Following the reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Democrats heavily campaigned on the issue of abortion in the 2022 midterm elections.
The Republican Party and many experts at the time expected a “red wave” in the voting booths, but Democrats surprised political pundits by maintaining control of the Senate and just narrowly losing control of the House of Representatives.
More recently, voters in Wisconsin voted for liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz — who campaigned on reproductive freedoms — in an election that likely decided the immediate future of abortion rights in the state.
With this in mind, it’s understandable why DeSantis crafted such fanfare when he first signed the 15-week ban in 2022 and did nothing in 2023 for the six-week ban: the more of a spotlight he puts on the decision, the more difficult it’ll be for him to win over independents and subsequently the White House in 2024.
