The extreme six-week abortion ban goes into effect in Florida Wednesday, so it’s a perfect time to remind voters that Donald Trump and the rest of the MAGA Republicans, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are the ones responsible for ripping away women’s reproductive rights.
And just in time for the presidential election, the Democratic National Committee launched a bilingual billboard campaign across the state to bring attention to the connection between Trump and the Draconian abortion bans sweeping the country. Abortion is now banned in every state across the south except Virginia. Both in English and Spanish, the DNC billboards are to be located in high-traffic areas in the cities of Tampa, Orlando, Gainesville and, yes, Miami, putting the number of miles between the women there and safe abortion procedures in Virginia.
The theme: Women here are too far away from reproductive medical care.
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In South Florida, the billboards will go up for southbound drivers on I-95 at Hollywood Boulevard and for northbound drivers on the Palmetto Expressway, south of Northwest 36sth Street.
“Donald Trump proudly paved the way for Florida’s extreme abortion ban, which cuts off access to critical reproductive care for millions of women,” said DNC spokesperson Jackie Bush, in a statement.
“As women across the South suffer, Trump claims overturning Roe — and the extreme abortion bans that resulted — is ‘working the way it is supposed to.’ If given the chance, Trump has said he wants to go even further, threatening a nationwide ban.
“Not only is the MAGA-backed ban in Florida dangerous for women who need abortion care, it’s dangerous for women who need health care, period. As medical providers flee to states without bans in order to practice safely, accessible care is drying up across the South,” Bush said.
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Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said that Trump himself was boasting about his role.
“All of this cruelty and chaos can be traced back to Donald Trump – who, and I quote, ‘proudly’ paved the way for women’s reproductive freedoms to be ripped away with the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” Fried said in a press conference Tuesday.
“Now, he says, state bans are – and I quote again from Trump – ‘working the way they are supposed to.’ With Florida’s ban going into effect tomorrow, access to reproductive health care is now effectively eliminated across the South.”
Florida voters will get a chance to take the government out of this private individual decision in November with the petition-driven Amendment 4 on the ballot. It’s a constitutional amendment that explicitly blocks the implementation of laws that prohibit, delay, or restrict abortion access.