(AP Photo/John Raoux, File)
Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that makes it illegal for a woman to get an abortion in Florida after six weeks and did so in a private manner that suggests he wasn’t too eager for media coverage.
News of the bill being signed into law was not revealed until the governor’s office released a statement late Thursday night that revealed the Florida Governor and presidential hopeful had signed the legislation at roughly 11 PM in a closed ceremony.
AP called the ban “a key political victory among Republican primary voters as he prepares to launch an expected presidential candidacy built on his national brand as a conservative standard bearer.” While it might be a political victory for DeSantis, it’s an enormous loss for any Florida woman who wants to have an abortion.
The bill, called The Heartbeat Protection Act, was explained by AP like this:
The six-week ban will take effect only if the state’s current 15-week ban is upheld in an ongoing legal challenge that is
before the state Supreme Court, which is controlled by conservatives.The policy would have wider implications for abortion access throughout the South in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade and leaving decisions about abortion access to states. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, while Georgia forbids the procedure after cardiac activity can be detected, which is around six weeks.
Elizabeth Landers, Chief Political Correspondent for Vice News, shared an image of DeSantis signing the bill into law:
As Sahil Kapur noted on Twitter, “Doesn’t scream confidence in the politics of this bill that Ron DeSantis enacted it in a private ceremony announced by tweet around 11 p.m.”