Statement from Florida Democratic Party Chair Manny Diaz on GOP State Representative’s Filing of a Texas-Style Abortion Bill

This morning Republican Florida State Representative Webster Barnaby filed a Texas-style abortion ban that would prohibit abortions in the state after a fetus’s heartbeat has been detected. The bill (HB 167) would empower private individuals, not state authorities, to enforce the proposed law.

In reaction to this appalling development, Florida Democratic Party Chairman Manny Diaz issued the following statement:

“This morning’s filing of a Texas-style anti-choice bill is as outrageous as it is unsurprising. The GOP’s radical and abject hostility to women’s reproductive and health care rights has been on display across the nation for decades. And now a bunch of men are getting ready to launch an all-out assault on women’s rights and are willing to deputize and reward bounty hunters to enforce their control over women’s lives.

“With the implementation of Texas’ unconscionable anti-choice vigilante bill, and the Supreme Court’s decision not to rule on it immediately, it was only a matter of time before Florida Republicans rushed to assault a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions. Women have a right to decide what happens in their lives, to their lives.

“Let me be absolutely clear, the Florida Democratic Party will mobilize down to the last woman and man in our ranks; we will exhaust every resource, contest every legislative maneuver and join every battle necessary to ensure a woman’s right to choose in our state. If Republicans attempt to bring Texas’ shocking and radical anti-abortion bill to Florida, we will give them the fight of their lives.”