TALLAHASSEE (FBW) – Sen. Jim King (R-Jacksonville) is attempting to rally fellow moderate Republican senators to kill a bill which would require women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound during the first trimester of pregnancy, the Miami Herald reported today.
Current Florida law already requires ultrasounds during the second and third trimester. Sponsored by Sen. Daniel Webster (R-Winter Garden), SB 2400 includes a provision permitting women to decline to see the ultrasound image.
Webster’s bill has been approved narrowly by two Senate committees and is ready for floor consideration by the entire body. But King, the powerful former president of the Senate and current chairman of the Rules Committee, “has approached moderate Republicans to find out if they’ll join Democrats to vote no,” reported the Herald.
King has previously told the Herald-Tribune.com, “If a woman wants to have an ultrasound it should be at her request. I don’t think there’s any woman who goes to an abortion clinic for an abortion who hasn’t agonized over some of those things already. And she shouldn’t have to jump through extra hoops that nobody else has to jump through.”
Webster, majority leader in the Senate, is a member of First Baptist Church of Central Florida in Orlando.
While acknowledging the vote count could change, King told the Herald he has recruited nine Republican senators, enough to kill the bill if at least 11 of the Senate’s 14 Democrats vote against the bill. There are 40 members of the Florida Senate.
The names of the nine Republican senators were not reported, although the Herald quoted Sen. Mike Bennett (R-Bradenton) as saying he is opposed to Webster’s bill because it is an “invasion of privacy. I oppose it, anyway.”
Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla (R-Miami), known to be more socially moderate, told the Herald he disagrees with his friend King in this instance, saying, “I’m pro-life.”
Webster told the Herald he would insist on a floor vote, no matter the outcome.
“I’m going to give it everything I’ve got and bring it to a vote and let [senators] decide. This Legislature was set up not to be a battleground for any thing other than ideas. It’s not a battleground of personalities,” Webster said.
King is a long-time nemesis of pro-life forces in Tallahassee. The Jacksonville Republican was a key opponent to ultimately unsuccessful legislation Webster sponsored attempting to save the life of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman who died in 2005 after a multi-year battle between her parents and husband.
In March 2005, in a last-ditch effort to pass legislation protecting Schiavo, King recruited eight other Republican senators to join him in opposing Webster’s bill. The senators became know as the “Republican Nine.” One of those senators, Nancy Argenziano, is no longer in the Senate, and two others, Sen. J.D. Alexander (R-Winter Haven) and Sen. Burt Saunders (R-Naples), have voted in favor of Webster’s bill in their respective committees.
The other members of the “Republican Nine” were: Bennett, Lisa Carlton (Sarasota), Paula Dockery (Lakeland), Dennis Jones (Seminole), and Evelyn Lynn (Daytona Beach).
According to Herald-Tribune.com, Gov. Charlie Crist was non-committal on Webster’s bill April 15, saying: “Let’s see what happens in the Senate first.”
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