New abortion proposals in Florida that could help to enshrine rights similar to those protected under Roe v. Wade have triggered misinformed and misleading posts from anti-abortion commentators.
Florida’s Amendment 4, known formally as the “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,” aims to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, limiting the government’s ability to restrict access before fetal viability.
The Amendment would ensure that “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
Pro-abortion rights activists participate in the “Rally for Our Freedom” supporting Amendment 4 to protect abortion rights for Floridians, in Orlando, Florida, on April 13, 2024. The upcoming vote on Amendment 4 has sparked misleading social media posts.
CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
Introduced by the organization Floridians Protecting Freedom it will appear on the November 5 ballot. If passed, it would repeal the state’s current six-week abortion ban.
The provisions grant similar protections provided by Roe v. Wade which protected women who seek an abortion “without undue restrictive interference from the government,” guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The vote has, however, led to misleading commentary from anti-abortion campaigners, including this week the prominent conservative social media account Libs of TikTok.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, posted on October 28, 2024, viewed 583,000 times, the account posted a video of an infant described as born preterm at 34 weeks.
“Difficult watch. This is a baby at 34 weeks,” the post said.
“Democrats in Florida are trying to pass Amendment 4 which would allow abortion until birth. Democrats want to kiII babies. Absolutely evil.
“Amendment 4 is one of the most radical abortion bills.
“Florida, VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 4!”
Difficult watch.
This is a baby at 34 weeks.
Democrats in Florida are trying to pass Amendment 4 which would allow abortion until birth. Democrats want to kiII babies. Absolutely evil.
Amendment 4 is one of the most radical abortion bills.
Florida, VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 4! pic.twitter.com/ySC4PjTYNK
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 28, 2024
However, as Newsweek’s Fact Check team found, this post is misleading.
It implies that the law would permit pregnancy for any reason after viability, a term that is broadly misunderstood.
As stated by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the term can have several meanings although most clinicians discuss the viability of a pregnancy when referring to the “perivariable period”, between weeks 20 through 25 and 6 days of pregnancy. Deliveries before 23 weeks have a five to six percent survival rate and high morbidity among survivors.
Viability also depends on concepts beyond age such as sex, genetics, weight, and availability of care.
“Even with all available factors considered, it still isn’t possible to definitively predict survival,” it states.
“While some fetuses delivered during the periviable period can survive, they may also experience significant morbidity and impairment.”
Beyond viability’s variability, the social media posts repeat misleading talking points about abortion care, implying that abortions later in term are easily available and eagerly provided, which is not the case.
As Newsweek has previously reported, a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2020, which investigated 620,327 legally induced abortions, found the abortion ratio was 198 per 1,000 live births.
Of those, only 0.9 percent of abortions were performed after 21 weeks of gestation, which would account for less than two pregnancies per 1,000 births. The wording of Amendment 4 offers discretion toward the healthcare provider, not the patient if an abortion were to take place later in pregnancy.
In a 2022 investigation by The Washington Post into the prevalence and circumstances surrounding these procedures, Warren Hern, director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic (which specializes in late abortions) said that 25 percent to 50 percent of patients had “some serious, catastrophic fetal abnormality, and there are some weeks in which this is true for 100 percent of the patients.”
Professor Suzanne Bell, an expert in fertility at the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Newsweek abortions after 21 weeks were “exceedingly rare.”
“These videos are meant to produce outrage but do not actually reflect the circumstances of abortions being provided at later gestations,” Bell said.
The video used in the Libs of TikTok post was taken from the TikTok account of “sweethomebrittany.” That video, posted in September 2024, has been viewed 4.3 million times. The video’s creator wrote in a summary section alongside: “When Kamala says that she speaks for all women know she doesnt speak for ME.
“ABC said it was lies. Yet this phone call shows that late term is STILL very much a thing. This video was SO hard to make knowing my son was born at 34 weeks.
“The fact ANY human can condone this BLOWS MY MIND.”
The video ostensibly includes a phone call with a clinic in Bethesda, Maryland, during which an operator says, “Abortion at any stage is actually much safer than delivering a term pregnancy” before describing the procedure.
Beyond the exaggerated prevalence of abortions later in pregnancy, evidence also shows that abortions are statistically safer than live births.
CDC data showed that from 2013 to 2020 the national case fatality rate for legally induced abortion was 0.45 deaths per 100,000.
By contrast, the CDC reports elsewhere a much higher maternal mortality rate, defined as “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes”
In 2021, 1,205 died of maternal causes in the U.S., creating a maternal mortality rate of 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births.
A seminal 2012 study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, based on extensive institutional data from 1998-2005, found that the pregnancy-associated mortality rate among women who delivered live newborn children was 8.8 deaths per 100,000 live births. By comparison, the mortality to induced abortion was 0.6 deaths per 100,000 abortions.
“Legal induced abortion is markedly safer than childbirth,” it stated.
“The risk of death associated with childbirth is approximately 14 times higher than that with abortion. Similarly, the overall morbidity associated with childbirth exceeds that with abortion.”
Professor Suzanne Bell told Newsweek, “This study was published prior to widespread use of self-managed medication abortion, so the framing of ‘legal induced abortion’ really just indicated these abortions were taking place within the formal healthcare system.
“Medication abortions occurring outside the formal healthcare system today are similarly safe.”
Where Does Amendment 4 Stand?
As Newsweek has previously reported, the measure has faced numerous legal challenges from Governor Ron DeSantis, a fierce opponent, and other anti-abortion groups, which claim it could undermine the legislature’s role in regulating abortions.
Recently, Florida’s Department of Health attempted to block campaign ads promoting the amendment, but U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a restraining order in favor of Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the ads supporting the ballot measure.
Additionally, the governor’s newly established Office of Election Crimes and Security has investigated allegations of petition fraud associated with the campaign, further complicating the initiative’s path to the ballot. Critics argue that these actions aim to intimidate supporters and weaken voter support for the amendment, with Judge Walker ruling that the department’s actions represented a First Amendment violation.
