Florida voters on Tuesday night voted down a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights for women in the state.
NewsNation’s Leland Vittert made the call, saying, “We’re talking about Decision Desk HQ now projecting, Amendment 4 in Florida fails. Now, there’s few things to look at this. It provides a constitutional right to abortion. It failed because it did not get 60% ‘yes.’ So you needed 60%. You didn’t get there. That fails. Providing a constitutional right to abortion. Before you ask the question, before fetal viability in Florida.”
The amendment came very close to the 60 percent threshold needed to roll back the state’s 6-week abortion ban, but in the end, failed as former President Donald Trump won the state by a resounding margin. With 93 percent of the vote in, Trump was up by some 1.5 million votes in the former swing state.
The Guardian reported on the amendment’s failure, noting, “After the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, Florida became a refuge for people fleeing the abortion bans that now blanket the rest of the US south, before its six-week ban took effect in May of this year. Had the Florida measure passed on Tuesday, it would have protected the right to abortion up until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks into pregnancy.”
