The debate over Florida's reproductive rights is underway as a new 15-week abortion ban is set to take effect Friday.
The abortion ban will be set in place by a trigger-law. Florida is among more than a dozen states who set trigger laws to take immediate effect banning or severely limiting abortions in the event Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Before the abortion ban goes into effect, several women's health clinics are challenging it in state circuit court with closing arguments in the case expected to come Thursday.
Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union recently sued Florida to block the new law. The plaintiffs are arguing the new law — which provides exceptions only for fatal fetal abnormalities — violates the state constitution under its broad privacy protections against government intrusion.
"Our constitution guarantees that government won't intrude in our private lives, and what's more private than decisions about if and when we want to be a parent and our bodily autonomy," Laura Goodhue with Planned Parenthood said. "We think that the right to bodily autonomy is essential to our freedoms as Floridians, as Americans. Unfortunately, with the highest court striking down Roe v Wade, all we have left is our state constitution."
Those in support of stricter abortion laws don't agree that the privacy clause should be interrupted this way. Christie Arnold with Respect Life Ministery says they see this as two separate lives the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg.
"We seek to protect all human life, and we believe that all human life is worthy of protection by law," Arnold said. "A law that seeks to protect unborn children from abortion procedures is a good law because it values the dignity of human life in the womb."
Arnold says she also believes stricter laws would protect women from more risky and dangerous abortions.
Florida currently allows abortions up to 24 weeks.
