Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has doubled down on the state’s restrictions against abortion services.
On Thursday, DeSantis announced that he signed the Heartbeat Protection Act into law, which will now require a woman to provide proof that the pregnancy was a result of rape, incest or human trafficking in order to receive an abortion up until 15 weeks of gestation.
Documentation can include a restraining order, police report, medical record or other evidence.
This restriction is an exception to the new law, which states that otherwise, abortions will be banned after six weeks unless done to save a pregnant person’s life.
“We are proud to support life and family in the state of Florida,” DeSantis, 44, said in a news release.
He’s supporting the family members who rape their daughters, that’s for sure. And any rape victim who doesn’t properly document her assault like a good little bureaucrat will just have to bear her rapists child. Paperwork is very important.
That’s what supporting life and family means in the state of Florida.
He has very little chance in a general election with this hard right agenda. It’s difficult to understand what he thinks he’s doing. It’s one thing to appeal to the base. But I think we expected him to be able to finesse this a bit better. He had a 15 week ban in hand that was working its way through the courts. He could have made up some babble about how it was important for it to go through the judicial process or something. The base would have bought it, at least for now. Rushing to get to Trump’s right on everything is simply not a winning strategy, particularly on this issue.