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Comment by ThrowawayTestr | Hacker News Reader

Tl;dr: Florida still has more access than much of Europe

For now.

The reason Florida is an outlier among the rest of the southeast US is an explicit right to privacy in the state constitution, which was of course the basis for Roe v. Wade and has precedent at the state supreme court as protecting abortion access. The 15-week ban is seen as a test case for how the current state supreme court will rule, since it has 3 DeSantis nominees. If they uphold the law, expect to see FL follow the rest of the region, post-haste.

State courts' interpretations of their own constitutions aren't bound by the federal courts' interpretations of the federal constitution. "If they uphold the law" is the wrong way to phrase it because the Florida supreme court will decide what the law is for Florida.

You missed the point there - the 15 week limit alone is more open than many European countries.

My point is that should the 15-week law be upheld, we will be in special session the next day for a ban.

More over, much of Europe had more restrictions only a few years ago.

And the US has far less restrictions a couple months ago. But what does either matter to people living in the present?

Not every statement needs to be written to serve some noble goal. I was offering the previous poster some interesting extra context.

Also, the Mississippi law that started the Dobbs case was virtually the same as Florida - 15 weeks with some exceptions.

Not for long.

Florida yes, but you're missing the whole last portion of the article:

Tl;dr: Florida has more access than some of Europe, but Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas have more restrictions than pretty much all of Europe except for Poland.

"On the other hand, several states have banned abortion from conception, with only exceptions for the life of the woman (no exceptions for rape, incest, or lethal fetal abnormalities): Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas. (For Texas, the law is currently held up in court.)

These laws are more restrictive than almost anywhere else in the rich world. Poland is similar, but is it “rich”?"

I think most people basically understand that part though. It's not like no one has noticed the bans and restrictions in red states.

The much stranger thing that's happening is Europeans protesting in the streets against a ruling in America that declared a 16-week abortion ban legal-- when their own country has a 12-week abortion ban!

It seems that many people both inside and outside America are missing the fact that the laws of most European countries would have been declared illegal under Roe for being too restrictive.

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