After nearly 5 hours of testimony, all FL senators are poised to vote on a 6-week abortion ban

Hundreds of people have come to the state Capitol this spring but had been limited to just 30 seconds to give testimony on complex bills in the Legislature. But on Tuesday, at the urging of Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, Sen. Travis Hutson allowed residents to speak as long as they wanted to on a highly contentious 6-week abortion ban bill.

Hutson, the committee chair and representing counties in northeast Florida, presented a stack of constituents’ public testimony cards and made time for all of them.

But despite almost five hours of testimony, a Senate Fiscal Policy committee voted in favor of the restrictive 6-week abortion ban, called SB 300, on Tuesday. It’s now ready for full-Senate consideration, likely later this week on the Senate floor.

In the committee room Tuesday, seats were filled to the brim, people lined the walls, tears were shed, and a man was escorted out of the committee room shouting “welcome to the supermajority,” referring to the numerous Republican lawmakers that control the Florida Legislature.

Several people told lawmakers that they got an abortion — but some were thankful for the procedure while others regretted it.

There were medical personnel trying to dispel myths and rumors about abortion and early pregnancy.

There were religious organizations, including the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, who supported the 6-week abortion ban bill, while organizers for Planned Parenthood testified against the bill.

Only one Republican woman voted against the bill, Sen. Alexis Calatayud of Miami-Dade County. In an earlier committee meeting, when Calatayud cried, she said that she chose not to vote for the abortion restriction because she promised her district that she would support Florida’s current 15-week abortion restrictions. Calatayud reiterated those remarks on Tuesday.

During debate on the bill, Calatayud was the only Republican woman who spoke up about her stance. The other four Republican women stayed mum: Sen. Colleen Burton, Sen. Ileana Garcia, Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez, and Rules Committee Chair Sen. Debbie Mayfield.

Sen. Jim Boyd, a Republican man, did voice his support for SB 300 during debate. He started with thanking Hutson for letting the public have ample speaking time.

But Hutson clarified that they should be thanking Senate President Passidomo.

“No thanks to me — it was the Senate President who wanted everybody to be heard. So all thanks should go to the President for us having extra time to make sure everybody was heard,” Hutson said.

Bill sponsor Sen. Erin Grall, who has carried several of Florida’s abortion restrictions over the past couple years, said of the legislation before the committee vote:

“I’ve heard choice and choice and choice, over and over and over again. And at the end of the day, I present this bill to you because last year 82,192 children didn’t have a choice about whether or not their life would be taken from them. It is this culture of death that we have normalized for 50 years. We have sterilized what abortion is.”

The final vote in the committee was 12-7, with all Democrats voting against the bill.