Hands off our right to privacy

The wily anti-abortion campaign has a way with words. Or, better stated, a way with twisting words.

In the latest effort to restrict a woman’s right to privately decide whether to access abortion services, the “anti” crowd is pitching a proposed state constitutional amendment that purports to expand privacy rights, but in fact does the opposite.

The amendment doesn’t mention abortion outright. No, the effort is shrouded in the “right to privacy” embedded in the Florida Constitution. It’s one the courts have long relied on to protect an individual’s right to decide myriad personal and medical decisions without government intrusion.

Right now, the constitution says: Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life.

The proposed amendment would change that to say: Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life, with respect to privacy of information and the disclosure thereof.

The addition of those words changes everything.

Rather than broadly say the government can’t intrude in your private life, the constitution would say the government can’t intrude in your personal life with respect to privacy of information. That’s it.

Adding those words would actually reduce our right to privacy, not just for decisions about abortion, but for end-oflife, or cellphone monitoring, or drones or any other matter where the government would like to stick its nose in our business.

By way of argument, proponents say the amendment would protect the information you give the U.S. Census Bureau from being revealed, for example. So if you tell a census-taker that three children live in your house, when no one under age 50 is allowed, that information couldn’t be revealed.

There’s just one problem with that example. The Census can’t legally release that data now. For as a practical matter, can you imagine how little people would reveal if they knew the Census was going to share it with the world?

Rather than leaving the privacy provision alone, as he should, Commissioner John Stemberger, an Orlando lawyer and longtime anti-abortion activist, with the blessing of a majority of his cohorts on the politically unbalanced commission, agreed to adopt the proposal from a member of the public as his own.

It happened last week as the Florida Constitution Revision Commission, an every-20-year look at possible changes in the state’s backbone document, wrapped up its public outreach phase. After months of encouraging public input, the group narrowed the public’s 2,000-plus suggestions to just six.

While the public suggested some outright abortion bans that named the deed, the more clever effort dressed up the privacy intrusion as a privacy expansion.

It came from Kenneth Bell, a former Florida Supreme Court Justice appointed by former Gov. Jeb Bush. As Bell well knows, the high court relies on a broad protection of privacy to deem anti-abortion legislation as untenable intrusions. Hence, many restrictive bills have hit a wall in the courts.

Commissioner Stemberger agreed to submit Bell’s proposal as his own.

It now moves to committee consideration and must pass muster with 22 of the commission’s 37 members by May 10 to make it on the 2018 ballot. Then, any amendment must be approved by 60 percent of the voters to be enshrined in the state constitution.

The troubling amendment comes before a woefully politically unbalanced commission. The majority of the commissioners were appointed by our Republican governor and Republican leaders of the Florida House and Senate, leaving little room for competing ideas to gain traction or much push for compromise.

“This is a dangerous game we’re in, resetting principles in Florida for the next generation,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. “We’d be less nervous if there were more diversity among commissioners.”

Certainly, there is room for improvement in the state’s governing document. One good possible change would allow independent voters to participate more broadly in the primary process of selecting candidates.

But the potential for positive action is severely limited by the one-sided political backgrounds of a majority of the commissioners. It’s yet another example of how deeply partisan politics impedes progress.

Limiting privacy rights runs counter to most Republican leanings of less-intrusive government, but when it comes to abortion, this lack of consistency is rarely acknowledged and often misrepresented.

This amendment is more of the same. And if it makes it onto the ballot, it will require an expensive campaign to defeat.

The public should pressure the commission to only forward to voters needed improvements to the constitution. The commission hearings ahead will be critically important.