Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday joined Doctors Against Amendment 4, a coalition of physicians opposed to a proposed pro-abortion amendment that is on the Sunshine State’s 2024 ballot.

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who has been critical of DeSantis in the past, joined the effort, providing a closing prayer at the Coral Gables news conference.

Standing with the governor, the group of doctors told reporters that the amendment misleads voters, and that, if it passes, it will imperil the health of many women in the state.

Early voting in Florida began on Monday.

Amendment 4 requires 60% of the public vote to amend the state’s constitution to explicitly legalize abortion up to “fetal viability” – usually defined at 24 weeks’ gestation – thus superseding the “Heartbeat Protection Act,” a pro-life law DeSantis signed last year protecting most unborn children after six weeks’ gestation.

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Many opponents of the amendment hold that, due to its vague wording, it would effectively legalize abortion in the state up to the moment of birth.

“I am glad that we have physicians here who are very clear-eyed about this and what it would mean for the state of Florida,” DeSantis, a Catholic, said during the news conference with the doctors. “Let’s just be clear. You have no definitions in this amendment, you have no doctors under this amendment, and you have really, really extreme policies such as the lack of meaningful limits.”

“That is not something that belongs in any state’s constitution, much less the state of Florida,” he added.

Miami OB-GYN Dr. Christina Peña said that the common claim by pro-abortion activists “that women’s lives are at risk if this amendment does not pass is a lie.”

“In the 20 years that I have been practicing obstetrics and gynecology, I have never once been limited in providing proper medical care for my patients,” she continued. “Every time I walk into a room, into an exam room, I have two patients that I need to care for. If I allow preventable harm to come to either the mother or the unborn baby, I would be liable and sued for malpractice.”

Peña highlighted that “even under present law, the unborn baby is found to have value,” and it “should speak volumes” that “most obstetricians do not perform abortions and run successful practices.”

The OB-GYN provided multiple examples to make the case that Amendment 4, contrary to the claims of its proponents, would in fact “open women to risk.”

She pointed to a similar pro-abortion amendment that passed in Michigan two years ago which she said prevented the state Health Department from performing “a routine health inspection to make sure the abortion clinic was using safe and sanitary practices.”

“This amendment removes even the word ‘physician’ from being the patient’s healthcare provider,” the doctor stated. “It scares me to the core to think who would then be allowed under this amendment to perform a surgical abortion and endanger the lives of women.”

“Would it be a nurse practitioner who took a weekend course?” she asked. “That possibility would exist.”

“It amazes me that those who pushed for the government to step in during the women’s rights movement and make abortion legal so it can be safe and not happen in the back alleys, as was their case,” Peña said, “are now pushing to remove all the laws that were put in place for the safety of women.”

“Where is the women’s rights movement to save women from the dangers of this amendment?” asked Peña.

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a radiologist from Miami, warned that Amendment 4’s language is “intentionally vague and deceptive.”

“When they say ‘No law shall prohibit, penalize, restrict, or delay abortion,’ they specifically mean that all or most of the current laws carefully designed to protect and safeguard the moms considering or undergoing an abortion will be discarded,” she explained.

“The danger cannot be overstated,” Christie said:

It means that the most basic common sense safety regulations, the licensing requirements, or even the cleanliness of abortion facilities can be repealed because those requirements delay and restrict abortion.

The ultrasound that is currently required to determine the age of the baby before abortion is performed is another delay and restriction that will be dropped under Amendment 4.

“Even critical laws that require specific training and advanced qualifications of abortionists can be rescinded because these would delay and restrict abortion,” she continued.

Christie also pointed out that “laws prohibiting the taxpayer funding of abortion will probably be rescinded under Amendment 4 because, again, they delay or restrict abortion.”

The doctor went on to say that the “intentionally vague and undefined” term “health of the mother” was added to the amendment “precisely to allow abortions at any time for virtually any reason.”

“This amendment as written would permit non-physicians to authorize even dangerous late-term abortions for a woman simply because she feels stressed during her pregnancy,” she argued.

Christie, a Catholic, currently serves on the Florida State Board of Education in a position to which DeSantis appointed her in 2022.

Her husband Dr. Steven Christie, a fellow Catholic radiologist and a lawyer, also spoke at the news conference with the governor.

The physician-lawyer held up a mailer he received from a pro-abortion group backing Amendment 4. “Its main claim is simply a bald-faced lie,” Christie said. “It tells Floridians that our current law has … ‘no actual exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother.’ It’s a complete and total lie.”

Christie held up a Florida statute which, he said, contrary to the claims of the pro-Amendment 4 mailer, “expressly permits abortion beyond the six weeks limit in the case of rape, incest, and the health of the mother.”

Earlier this year, DeSantis appointed Dr. Steven Christie to the Florida Board of Medicine.

Miami pediatric cardiologist and bioethicist Dr. Felipe Vizcarrondo, also a Catholic, spoke next.

Amendment 4 is “very extreme in how it interferes with the practice of medicine,” he said.

“The present Florida law requires a person to have two in-person appointments at least 24 hours apart to obtain an abortion,” the pediatrician noted. “The physician informs the patient of the procedure and the risks, and the consequences, and obtains consent from the patient.”

“If Amendment 4 passes,” he continued, “this process that I just outlined will be interpreted as a delay to the access to abortion, and will be prohibited. Doctors will be forced to do substandard practice. Women will receive substandard care. Everyone suffers.”

South Miami pediatrician Dr. Norman Ruiz-Castaneda noted that Amendment 4 would eliminate the requirement of parental consent for minor girls in Florida to undergo abortions.

“As parents know, any time they go to the doctor’s office, they need to sign consent” for their children to be examined, he outlined. “Every time a school needs to give fever-reducer and aspirin, Tylenol, they need to give consent.”

“The reality is, most adolescents who are facing an unscheduled pregnancy, an unwanted pregnancy, are going to have their parents there to take care of her, and love her, and be with her,” Ruiz-Castaneda said:

And by having this amendment eliminate your consent, you’re making them vulnerable to people who would manipulate them, or would abuse them, and be able to continue doing that.

After being introduced by Republican Florida Lieutenant Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, Archbishop Wenski took the podium to give a closing prayer.

“Your presence here and your words today have reinvigorated all of us,” Wenski told the doctors, “and have helped us to recommit ourselves for the two weeks that remain, that we can speak to our neighbors, to our family members, and speak of the importance of our communicating to them … why this amendment should fail.”

“God our Creator,” he prayed, “we give thanks to You who alone have the power to impart the breath of life.”

“As You formed each one of us in our mother’s womb, grant we pray that we, whom You have made stewards of creation … be constant in safeguarding the dignity of every human life,” Wenski added.

LifeNews Note: Joshua Mercer writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.