Some GOP women in Florida are attending quiet “house parties” to subvert their party on abortion.

By Arek Sarkissian and Kimberly Leonard

08/29/2024 06:55 PM EDT

BRADENTON, Florida — Deep in red southwest Florida, a group of mostly Republican women gathered Tuesday evening to talk about a ballot initiative that seeks to abolish Florida’s ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

But instead of falling in line with restrictions backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s Republican party, the group spent more than two hours inside a waterside clubhouse for a gated community along the Manatee River, listening intently to a discussion led by a local obstetrician who supports the measure.

“It will make me so happy to know that people will be entering those voting booths knowing that they can vote with their conscience,” attendee Sue Revell said at the end of the event. “And they will cast their ballot without any government interference.”

Revell was among more than 30 people who turned out for the event hosted by a coalition of conservative women in favor of the ballot initiative. Most attendees preferred not to be identified or quoted at the event because they feared professional repercussions from within their own party or tension with those closest to them.

Still, the GOP women showed up to Tuesday’s meeting — one of two so-called house parties that have been held in Manatee County— because they knew the ballot initiative wouldn’t be able to pass without people like them. It needs 60 percent voter support to be enshrined in the state Constitution.

By the end of Tuesday’s meeting, some party guests were asking how they could host similar parties. And the underlying tension among guests — brought on by talking about a politically sensitive issue like abortion in one of the most conservative stretches of the state — instead turned into questions about how they could take action. The meeting was attended by members of the League of Women Voters, which left paper summaries of the amendment for guests to take.

Democratic Party candidates, from Vice President Kamala Harris to others down the ballot, are running hard on women’s reproductive rights, bringing the issue to the forefront of voters’ minds. But in Florida, if Democratic party members can’t get half of the votes from the other side of the aisle, the ballot measure won’t pass. There are close to 1 million more registered Republicans in Florida than Democrats, according to state elections data.

Earlier this year, members of the Manatee County-based coalition and dozens of other organizations helped gather the more than 891,000 voter-signed petitions required for Amendment 4 to make the ballot. Carol Whitmore, a Republican and Manatee County commissioner, was among them. As she helped to hand out petitions, she noticed a number of Republican women voters had asked to sign them in support.

“There’s a lot of people who are just too afraid to speak up,” Whitmore said before Tuesday’s event, adding the meetings are designed to be a safe place for GOP women to talk openly about abortion. She first publicly announced her support for reproductive rights during a 2021 county commission meeting over a failed local abortion ban.

“Here you can speak freely and ask any questions that you want,” she said during the event. “We want you to know that this is about choice.”

Whitmore and fellow coalition members Ashley Brown and Jaymie Carter decided to hold events around Manatee and Sarasota counties, where conservative women could talk about abortion rights. Brown, who is also the president and CEO of the Bradenton-based nonprofit Women’s Resource Center, said while the issue has always been an emotional one for many women, politics has made just talking about abortion near impossible.

“They should be able to speak their mind without some sort of pulverizing response,” Brown said. “There were days when we could do that.”

The group isn’t the only one bucking the party. All over Florida, Republican women say they feel they need to get involved but want to do so quietly without having their names attached to the effort. Some are powerful within the GOP ranks but are still worried about the prospect of going public with their views, with one saying if it ever got out that she was involved in backing Amendment 4 then it would “ruin my life.” A big part of the concern is crossing DeSantis, who has aggressively retaliated against his foes during his time in office — from progressive prosecutors to Walt Disney World.
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The infrastructure built by DeSantis to fight Amendment 4 includes a statewide campaign called No on 4 Florida. In response to Tuesday’s event, No on 4 spokesperson Taryn Fenske said she agreed the issue has earned interest among voters on both sides of the aisle, and they will be voting against the initiative.

“Once they get past the intentionally vague and deceptive language, Floridians regardless of party affiliation realize that Amendment 4 is radical, dangerous, and wrong for Florida,” Fenske wrote in a statement. “No matter where you stand on the issue, there’s nothing ‘small government’ or ‘conservative’ about Amendment 4.”

For some, the issue has never been core to their Republican beliefs. One GOP woman who’d worked as a staffer in the Legislature said she thought that the rights afforded under Roe would always be there and that she was “completely shocked” when the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling.

“I always grew up with that protection,” she said. “I always thought that was something that was more of a political talking point but we weren’t going to see any policy on it.”

If Amendment 4 passes, it would strike Florida’s recently enacted ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and permit abortion without restrictions until roughly 24 weeks. Abortions after that time frame would be allowed for cases in which medical providers determine abortions are needed for health reasons.

The six-week abortion ban was a top priority for DeSantis during his failed presidential campaign, and during the primary, he ripped into former President Donald Trump for calling the ban a “terrible mistake.” Now he’s working to defeat Amendment 4, saying the measure was vaguely written to drastically loosen state regulatory controls. And this week, cabinet officials pledged at least $100,000 each to help DeSantis in his fight.

The push by DeSantis and other Florida Republicans to tighten Florida’s abortion laws began as the Supreme Court signaled that it would support a 15-week ban in Mississippi. Florida subsequently approved its own 15-week ban, with no exemptions for rape, incest or human trafficking, after the high court struck Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

With Roe gone, Florida Republicans were able to approve the six-week ban last year. The tighter restrictions took effect in May after the state Supreme Court upheld the 15-week ban in a lawsuit brought by abortion-rights groups including Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

The Florida Supreme Court also declined a request made by Republican state Attorney General Ashley Moody to block Amendment 4 from making the ballot. The decision led DeSantis to create a political committee called the Freedom Fund, which supports the No on 4 Campaign.

The coalition of conservative supporters of reproductive rights leading Tuesday’s meeting is an offshoot of the Floridians Protecting Freedom Committee. The group had previously struggled to raise campaign cash due to concerns among out-of-state donors about Florida’s overwhelming number of Republican voters. But a victory on a similar measure supported by Ohio voters last November helped turn the tide with cash, followed by the campaign collecting enough voter signatures to make this year’s ballot ahead of the state’s February 1 deadline.

“I feel like the tides are turning,” Whitmore said. “I think we’ll be turning the tide without all of the scare tactics.”

Initiative member Jaymie Carter helped organize the first event in July, which also attracted more than 30 people. Before Tuesday’s meeting, Carter said several people had RSVP’d. The loss of three DeSantis-backed Sarasota school board candidates during the primary race earlier this month spurred more interest because it signaled to some that his influence in Florida might be waning.

“People want to say what they feel,” Carter said. “As we’ve always said as Republicans, less government interference.”

Sarasota resident Carolyn Johnson said she and three other Democrats attended the event to learn about doing outreach at home. She said recent primary results have presented an opportunity for unified action.

“This ban is bad medicine,” Johnson said. “We have people in Sarasota who are saying ‘No.’”

Manatee resident Tonya Kida said she agrees with many Republican principles, including support for less government intervention.

“Being Republican is about less government,” Kida said. “This is about government interference.”