In Florida, abortion rights, not ‘Biden’s inflation,’ should be a top concern for voters
There’s a reason Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the patron saint of macho man freedom, doesn’t want to talk about abortion rights on the campaign trail.
The Republican intrusion on the private reproductive choices of women and families is causing the kind of distress that could change election outcomes in many races — if DeSantis told voters the truth of his intentions, as he has in the past.
He will continue squeezing abortion rights until there are none left.
It’s a brand-new world for women in the United States, post-Roe v. Wade’s constitutional demise, with states now able to rule over our bodies. And so, the majority-conservative U.S. Supreme Court ruling makes this midterm election for Florida’s women the most highstakes contest of our generation.
If DeSantis is re-elected over former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, as polls indicate will happen, the most likely outcome is that Florida will see a total ban on abortion, or something a lot like it, the ill-named (because there isn’t one) six-week “heartbeat” ban.
And make no mistake, people will face murder charges, as Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, running for Pennsylvania governor, has vowed.
DeSantis is an autocrat, a MAGA Republican using the minority conservative Christian right obsessed with cultural regression to position himself for a White House bid in 2024.
If you think the video of police officers in Florida handcuffing and taking to jail stunned people — for casting votes authorized by the state — is shocking, wait until DeSantis succeeds in banning abortion.
Mothers, fathers, daughters, doctors, nurses, counselors — all deemed as enabling or participating in the most personal decision a woman can make — will face a similar fate for providing reproductive healthcare.
In Florida, the ramifications aren’t hypothetical anymore.
Under the 15-week ban, we’ve seen a 16-year-old denied an abortion by an Escambia County judge and a 10-year-old incest victim in Jacksonville forced to travel across several states to get the rapist’s “seed,” as U.S. Rep. Val Demings called it, removed from her body.
Women’s vote in Florida will be critical in this election, and the whole world is watching.
“The end of the right to abortion in the United States will have devastating consequences around the world,” the British The Guardian warns in a story illustrated with photographs of aborted tissue instead of false, baby-shaped conservative images.
“A half century ago, the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v Wade decision inspired a new era of reproductive freedom in dozens of countries,” the newspaper says. “The court’s reversal will empower anti-abortion voices everywhere, threatening reproductive freedom and the right to control one’s destiny.”
WHAT FLORIDA VOTERS SAY
However, abortion rights aren’t a priority for the majority of Florida voters, if you believe the polls.
A recent poll by Spectrum News-Siena College ranked issues Florida voters care about, and no surprise, at the top of the list at 39% was the economy, inflation and living affordability.
“Threats to our democracy” came in second at 16%.
Still, at least a number of Floridians still care about the fact that we almost lost it on Jan. 6 while the DeSantis crowd only pays lip service to their brand of “freedom:” taking away the civil rights of others.
Abortion rights came in third, a worrisome 11%, as the threat that Republicans, hell-bent on their erasure from American life, represent.
In the only gubernatorial debate, rescheduled for Monday, Crist should press DeSantis hard on abortion, and be at least as forceful as Demings was with Sen. Marco Rubio on Tuesday.
“No, Senator, I do not think it’s OK for a 10-year-old girl to be raped and have to carry the seed of her rapist,” Demings told Rubio. “No, I don’t think it’s OK for you to make decisions for women and girls.”
Like Rubio, DeSantis doesn’t want to own up to his — and the national Republican Party’s — plan to dismantle abortion rights.
INFLATION A GOP COP-OUT TOPIC
For DeSantis, the easiest political ride to re-election is to campaign as if his opponent were President Joe Biden, not former Republican Gov. Crist, now a centrist Democratic congressman.
And, of course, in Miami, it’s rinse and repeat previous campaigns, by constantly repeating the myth that Democrats are socialists.
“How gullible do you think voters are?” Demings asked rhetorically during a Miami Herald Editorial Board meeting Thursday.
Answer: Very.
So DeSantis and his local Republican surrogates keep pounding on Biden, blaming him for the worldwide inflation instead of admitting the starring role of: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affecting the world’s oil supplies; the lingering supply-and-demand effects of the COVID pandemic that DeSantis downplays; and pure corporate greed.
Yes, you’re paying more for groceries because, for instance, Publix is packing less spinach and lettuce into those packages that now cost more, too. I used to get two full salads out of one bag. Now, I get one and a half. At Sedano’s, prices are holding up more fairly.
Wake up to the smokescreens. As for gas prices, shop around and confirm, as I have, that some gas stations are ripping you off. Not all Shells and Exxons are created equal.
In North Florida, it’s so much easier to appreciate. The same brand on the Georgia side of the border is about 10 cents cheaper than in Florida.
Inflation is worldwide, an excuse to score record corporate profits and hopefully, temporary.
But losing our abortion rights to fascism in Florida costs more. It’s a step on the road to the end of democracy as we know it.