PALM BEACH GARDENS | In a continuing effort to educate local Catholics on Amendment 4, which will be on Florida’s Nov. 5 General Election ballot, and equip them to spread the word on the extreme and deceptive abortion proposal, the Diocese of Palm Beach and its parishes are hosting informational meetings. The latest events were in Delray Beach Aug. 14 and in Vero Beach Aug. 15.
Following a vigil Mass for the feast of the Assumption, St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in Delray Beach hosted a “town hall” meeting in the parish center featuring four main speakers: Dr. Anthony Dardano, former obstetrician/gynecologist; Sara Johnson, statewide grassroots director for the Vote No on 4 campaign; Father Timothy Cusick, a priest of the Diocese of St. Augustine who is academic dean/professor at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach; and Mary Rodriguez, registered nurse and former Birthline/Lifeline program director.
In his talk, Dardano offered background information on what abortion is and isn’t. Only 7 percent of all ob/gyns in the United States perform abortions, said the doctor, who delivered 5,000 babies during his 61 years of practicing medicine.
“Abortion is the only surgical procedure we have that has a 100 percent mortality rate,” Dardano said, warning that if Amendment 4 is approved by voters, it will be another step toward euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in Florida.
No definitions, no parental consent
As she has done many times throughout the state, Johnson’s presentation focused on the facts surrounding Amendment 4 and consequences if more than 60 percent of Florida’s voters approve it.
The proposed constitutional amendment (formally titled “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion”) is: “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. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
What are not part of the amendment or its ballot summary are definitions for the terms “viability,” “patient’s health” and “healthcare provider,” she said, meaning that those terms could be left to interpretation by the courts. And because parental consent is currently required by Florida law for a minor to receive an abortion, the amendment would replace that rule with parental “notification.” Parents could be notified of their daughter’s abortion days afterward, Johnson said.
“The scariest word in this amendment is that small word ‘or’ that follows ‘viability,’” she said. “Now we’re talking about even when a pregnancy is viable OR when necessary to protect the patient’s health as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. So, all of that, ‘No law shall prohibit, penalize or restrict abortion before viability OR’ when a baby is capable of surviving outside of the womb. If a healthcare provider determines that it’s necessary for your health (possibly mental stress) to have an abortion, you can have access to it without delay.
“It’s not unintentional that it is written exactly this way. It’s not like they had an intern send this amendment into the secretary of state and forget to send the other part with definitions and enactments,” Johnson said. “It is absolutely intentional. We know the sponsors of this amendment. We see what they’re doing in other states. They wrote it specifically with these 34 words.”
A group called Floridians Protecting Freedom sponsored the petition drive that led the state to put the amendment on the ballot, she said. More than 1 million signatures were collected in Florida. The effort was funded by the American Civil Liberties Union, national Planned Parenthood, the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundation and other groups, Johnson added.
“So, this is not an organic Floridian (organization) coming up against our policies. These are outside organizations that are spending money in the state of Florida to collect petitions. In order to collect a million petitions, they spent about $15.5 million,” she said.
Speaking about religion in the public square, Father Cusick said the duty of the church is not to tell people who to vote for. “Our duty as church and as pastors is to form consciences so that laypeople can make prudential judgments according to their well-formed consciences about what is right and just as they participate in society.”
He urged people to speak calmly and rationally with others about the amendment. “We have to make sure that we can be heard when we talk about these things. We speak the truth, but we speak the truth in love because we know what we are supporting” — the common good of human life.
“The challenge I just offer all of us tonight, as we seek to speak the truth in love, is to say that I will be a faithful witness to the faithful love of God, especially to those who do not know him,” Father Cusick said.
With her focus on prayer, Rodriguez invited Catholics to ask people to pray with them. “This darkness needs us to bring light. We need to bring faith and hope and light to the world and to our neighbors,” she said.
‘We need the facts’
The informational gathering at St. Helen Parish in Vero Beach Aug. 15 featured state Sen. Erin Grall, a graduate of St. Helen School, and Savannah Evans, a representative of the pro-life advocacy group Live Action.
One of the words in the amendment that Grall emphasized is “delay.” In Florida, anyone seeking abortion services must wait 24 hours after their initial consultation. By banning any “delay” for abortion recipients, a waiting period would surely be outlawed, she said.
Grall went a little more in-depth on current Florida abortion laws to give attendees factual information on the effects of Amendment 4. With a properly informed electorate, she is confident the amendment will fail miserably.
“What is important is that we need the facts, and that’s why I gave you the statutory references today, the background on the constitution and the decisions that were made in the past because the easiest way to come after the life movement is to try to make us seem like the ones that are deceiving the public. Make us seem like the ones that are ignoring science,” Grall said.
Without clear explanations of the amendment, she said, the general public will be less likely to trust the pro-life perspective. “That’s why it’s so critical that we stay on message,” Grall said. “The Vote No on 4 campaign has worked very hard to make sure that what we are talking about is the most important to the most people.”
The next local Vote No on 4 session is planned for Sunday, Sept. 15, after the 11:30 a.m. Mass at the St. Anastasia Parish Center, 407 S. 33rd St., Fort Pierce. The guest speaker will be state Rep. Dana Trabulsy.
To learn more about the Florida constitutional amendment being voted on in November, visit www.diocesepb.org/abortion-amendment.html, https://flaccb.org/abortion-amendment or https://votenoon4florida.com/, which offers a two-minute video showing the extreme nature of Amendment 4. Connect with Vote No on 4 on Facebook, Instagram and X.
