Emboldened after successful efforts in other red states, abortion supporters want a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion in the Florida constitution. A major hurdle to do that, however, is gathering a million-plus valid signatures to get the issue in front of voters in November.
Lynda Bell, of Florida Right to Life, tells AFN she encountered some of the signature gatherers who claimed abortion is outlawed in Florida. That is technically not true, however, according to a Planned Parenthood website that describes current legal challenges to a 15-week ban and a six-week ban.
Bell says she told the abortion supporters abortion is also legal in Florida if a woman’s life is in danger.
“What you're telling people is not correct. It's a lie,” Bell recalled telling them. “And every one of them said, ‘Look I'm just doing what I was told and I'm here to get a paycheck.’”
Those I’m-just-here-for-the-paycheck comments mirror a Daily Signal story that reports two signature gatherers have been arrested and charged with fraud. George Edwards Andrews III, 30, and Jamie L. Johnson, 47, have both been charged with 10 felony counts of identity fraud by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
All totaled, Andrews and Johnson are accused of submitting 133 invalid petitions which they collected in several Florida counties. It is unclear in the story how many fake names are included on those 130-plus pages.
One of the defendants is described by authorities as a “paid petition circulator,” according to the Daily Signal story.
According to Bell, the pro-abortion forces behind the signature drive appear desperate.
“It's just they're devious and they will do anything and everything,” she complains. “For them the end justifies the means but that's not how we operate.”
