It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the Florida state supreme court would not have allowed Governor Ron DeSantis’s six-week abortion ban to go into effect. In a challenge to a previous 15-week ban, the court’s seven judges, all of whom were appointed by DeSantis, overturned 35 years of precedent this week in order to find that the right to privacy enshrined in the state constitution does not protect the right to an abortion, as Florida state law has acknowledged it does since 1989.
The court’s approval of the 15-week ban will allow a stricter, previously stayed six-week ban to go into effect on 1 May. Justice Charles Canady did not recuse himself from the case, despite calls for him do so from no less an authority than the Florida supreme court’s former chief justice, Barbara Pariente. Justice Canady’s wife, the state representative Jennifer Canady, is a legislative co-sponsor of the newly approved six-week ban. There is no rape or incest exception.
