I was writing about the flagrant violation of the constitution committed by the United States Department of Justice that has been revealed by release of the previously undisclosed tapes from inside the US Capitol Building on January 6. Look for it next week…
It can wait because I would be remiss in my obligation to “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” if I did not respond to the op-ed by Diane Roberts reprinted in the Daily Post on March 8, in which she trashes the state of Florida.
Diane Roberts is a professor of Literature at Florida State University in Tallahassee. I’m an alumnus of the FSU law school. My wife is of its nursing school. I’m acquainted with many alumni, and faculty.
Though I disagree with Roberts on nearly everything, as a history buff I enjoyed one of her books, Dream State, which chronicles the eight generations of her extended family in Florida. Ms. Roberts is a born and bred Floridian.
Let’s scrutinize some of her claims.
Ms. Roberts wrote this about Florida’s current abortion law:
Florida wants all you freedom-loving Americans to come on down. We are so, so free! Unless you’re a woman and think you should have “control” over your own body. It’s not your body: It belongs to your future offspring. If you get pregnant and want an abortion, tough. We’ve got a 15-week ban right now, but that’ll soon going to be tightened up to damn near nothing. Don’t think you can weasel out of having that baby just because it might kill you, either. Or because the baby’s going to die anyway. God didn’t promise Eve an easy ride.
The 15-week limit on abortion is consistent with Roe v Wade, a Supreme Court case I imagine Roberts is familiar with – but may not have actually read. If she has, she knows this is what it held:
“During the first trimester, the Court announced, “the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician.” After that point, a State’s interest in regulating abortion for the sake of a woman’s health became compelling, and accordingly, a State could “regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.”
Finally, in “the stage subsequent to viability,” which in 1973 roughly coincided with the beginning of the third trimester, the State’s interest in “the potentiality of human life” became compelling, and therefore a State could “regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”
Here are some comments I offered in a previous Daily Post column.
Fifteen weeks is beyond the first trimester, so the Florida law actually permits unrestricted abortion for longer than required by Roe v Wade.
But there is more.
Florida is one of few states that includes a specific right to privacy in its Constitution. Article 1, Section 23 provides:
Right of privacy.
Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as otherwise provided herein.
The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that “right to privacy” applies to personal health decisions such as abortion. (Also masks and vaccines perhaps?) So Ms. Roberts’ lamentations about the right to abortion being “tightened up to damn near nothing” is only “sky is falling” rhetoric.
Another empty slogan is her calling the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act the “Don’t Say Gay Act”. Here is the statute she is referring to, I challenge you to find the word ‘gay’ anywhere in that law.
I’ll save you some time reading… you won’t find it. Ms. Roberts objects to a law that prevents schools from withholding from parents critical information about their child’s health and welfare, and prohibiting certain classroom discussions:
“Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students accordance with state standards.”
The audacity of the state prohibiting teachers from talking to kindergartners about intimate details of sex!
Ms. Roberts seems most upset that the legislature is heeding the warnings of the American College of Pediatricians against genital mutilation and hormone-blocking therapy for minors. Her rationale for medieval mutilation of children is a false narrative about suicide rates among the so-called “gender dysphoric”.
The rest of Ms. Roberts sarcastic diatribe is more of the same shrill wokeness unsupported by facts. But the real failure of her rant is her utter lack of comprehension of irony – of which you’d think, as a Professor of Literature, she’d have a better grasp. Because this is really all about the very democracy Democrats are always demanding be respected.
Ms. Roberts’ litany of outrage follows the first term of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has targeted, among other things, the state university system for wasting taxpayer money.
Desantis was elected Governor in 2018 by 32,000 votes – less than a 1% majority. The slimmest gubernatorial election margin in Florida history. He won re-election in 2022 by one and a half million votes. Obviously the electorate approve of his job performance — and his campaign slogan that “Florida is where woke comes to die!”
Desantis won 62 of our 67 counties, including two historic democratic strongholds. He’s also the first Republican to overwhelmingly win the Hispanic south Florida vote.
Those results utterly refute Ms. Roberts’ claim that Democrats, minorities and those who speak Spanish, are not welcome in Florida. As do our Hispanic Lt. Governor (selected by DeSantis), and the African-American physician DeSantis appointed to be our Surgeon General (whose policies about COVID mask and vaccine mandates have proven to be correct).
And it’s not just that we have a Republican governor. For the first time in history, Republicans have a super-majority in both houses of the Florida legislature — which scares the hell out of certain Democrats because it reflects that a brand of woke politics has been thoroughly rejected by the citizens of Florida. More relevantly, the budget of the state university system (where Ms. Roberts works) is now in the cross-hairs.
Not only is Ms. Roberts’ outrage ironic — it’s hypocritical. She had no problem with Florida being controlled by Democrats (as it had been for over a century after Reconstruction) who perpetually fattened the university budgets. But now that the voters have expressed overwhelming support for Republicans, Roberts howls that it’s the end of the world.
I do want to thank Ms. Roberts for her column though! Migrants fleeing Democrat run states are moving to Florida in record numbers. So far our infrastructure is managing the influx, but is reaching its limits. We really can’t handle many more people.
So if her column discourages others who think like her from moving here, she did her native state a service.
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.