Ron DeSantis and the Heritage Foundation want to overturn abortion law in Florida

If the residents of Florida As Democrats cast their ballots in November and consider whether to restore abortion protections in the state, they will face a series of right-wing claims and speculation that the measure would “result in significantly more abortions and fewer live births each year in Florida,” “could force the state to subsidize abortions with public funds,” and could result in costly litigation.

“An increase in abortions can negatively impact state and local revenue trends over time,” voters will be told as they vote on a measure that would prohibit state lawmakers from restricting abortions before the fetus is viable or when they are necessary to protect the patient’s health.

These claims are being presented to voters as part of a supposed “financial impact statement” attached to the abortion ballot measure by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, conservative activists like those at the Heritage Foundation, and judges appointed by DeSantis as part of the conservative takeover of the Florida Supreme Court.

Fresh from DeSantis’ humiliating defeat in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, the governor and his allies are trying to stack the deck against the amendment he signed to keep the six-week abortion ban in place, adding key language to the bill while raising money for a state-level Super PAC to oppose the ballot measure.

During the primaries last fall, former President Donald Trump called DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake” and continued to claim that six weeks is “too short.” But Trump recently declared his opposition to the abortion ballot bill that would repeal the six-week ban in the state.

In doing so, Trump has sided with the Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025. Trump has publicly distanced himself from the controversial personnel and policy program that was intended to help his potential second term in the US administration, particularly because of its far-right anti-abortion agenda.

In the two years since the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade and ended federal abortion protections, when abortion rights were on state ballots, abortion access campaigns have won across the board – even in Republican states. DeSantis and his allies hope to avoid a similar outcome in the Sunshine State, where 60 percent of the vote is already needed to pass changes, and have their fingers on the scale.

After Florida’s six-week ban went into effect, a judge ordered the state’s Financial Impact Estimating Conference to revise an earlier financial impact statement it had included with the abortion access ballot bill, a version that supporters of the bill had called confusing and ambiguous.

When the issue was revisited at the Financial Impact Assessment Conference in July, Republicans took the opportunity to draft a new, far more extreme statement to accompany the abortion bill for the vote.

“The proposed amendment would result in significantly more abortions and fewer live births each year in Florida,” the statement said. “The increase in abortions could be even greater if the amendment repeals laws that require parental consent before performing abortions on minors and those that ensure that only licensed physicians perform abortions. There is also uncertainty about whether the amendment will require the state to subsidize abortions with public funds. Litigation to resolve these and other uncertainties will create additional costs for state government and state courts that will negatively impact the state budget. An increase in abortions could negatively impact state and local revenue growth over time.”

It concludes: “Because the fiscal impact of the increase in abortion on state and local revenues and costs cannot be accurately estimated, the overall impact of the proposed change in the law is undetermined.”

To push through their preferred language, Republicans revamped the Financial Impact Estimating Conference, bringing in Chris Spencer, a longtime DeSantis staffer and political appointee, while Rachel Greszler, a policy fellow at the Heritage Foundation, is paid $75 an hour to represent the Florida House of Representatives.

The lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, Heritage Action for America, had campaigned for a law banning abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy and celebrated its passage as a “historic victory in the fight to protect life.”

At a meeting in July, Spencer and Greszler argued with Michelle Morton, an attorney with the ACLU of Florida, who had noted, “Normally, when a [Financial Impact Estimating Conference] The panel will not change when it reconvenes. It will consist of full-time experts who are drawn from relevant valuation conferences. Normally [conference] focuses on these direct effects of the proposed changes and typically cites peer-reviewed studies, including competing evidence, underlying its assumptions.”

That was not the case here. Spencer, for his part, claimed: “This could result in the state being forced to cover 100 percent of the costs of tens of thousands of abortions each year that it currently does not pay for. I think that is so important that it has to be considered.”

The state paid Michael New, an assistant professor at Catholic University, $300 an hour to speak to the panel about the financial implications. New’s university resume states that he “researches and writes on the social science of pro-life issues” and “lectures on … the positive impact of pro-life laws.”

In a written statement to the panel, New expressed his “professional opinion” that the abortion amendment “would have a negative financial impact on Florida.”

“Based on the experience of other states, there is a strong likelihood that Florida’s Medicaid program would have to fund abortions on a voluntary basis,” he wrote. “This would easily cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars annually. It would also certainly lead to more abortions, fewer births, and a lower birth rate in Florida. There is a great deal of research showing that declining birth rates will lead to lower tax revenues in the long run.”

Jonathan Abbamonte and Parker Sheppard, researchers at the Heritage Foundation, provided the panel with data to support the conservatives’ claims. They wrote that “the total fertility rate under the proposed change is expected to be about 0.11 lower than it would be under a six-week abortion period and about 0.01 lower than it would be under a 15-week abortion period. Reduced fertility rates would affect the size of the labor force in the years to come.”

Last month, the Florida Supreme Court – which had upheld the state’s previous 15-week ban and allowed the six-week ban to take effect in May – blocked a lawsuit by the abortion measure’s sponsor challenging the new financial impact language.

DeSantis had previously also reshaped the state Supreme Court – allegedly in collaboration with conservative activist Leonard Leo, an expert on dark money and anti-abortion activist who had engineered the right-wing extremist takeover of the US Supreme Court.

The Florida governor also created the Florida Freedom Fund, a political committee that can accept unlimited donations to oppose the abortion vote and change recreational marijuana laws. As of mid-August, the committee had raised $2.6 million.