FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Abortion rights advocates are demanding a Florida state senator be rebuked for controversial comments that have been called racist, the latest flash point in a debate growing more heated amid renewed efforts in Florida to chip away at Roe v. Wade.
State Sen. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican, has suggested in recent interviews that abortion is causing Europeans to be replaced by immigrants and paving the way for the end of Western civilization.
"When you get a birth rate less than 2%, that society is disappearing," he said of Western Europe during an interview with the Miami public radio station WLRN. "And it's being replaced by folks that come behind them and immigrate, don't wish to assimilate into that society and they do believe in having children. So you see that there are long-range impacts to your society when the answer is to exterminate."
Baxley sponsored a bill that would have outlawed most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Unlike other states, that bill and other abortion restrictions didn't progress in the Florida Legislature during the 2019 session that ended May 4.
At a news conference Wednesday in West Palm Beach, Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, said Baxley's remarks crossed a line.
"These racist comments must be condemned by Sen. Baxley's colleagues in the state Senate," she said. "Sen. Dennis Baxley, you have gone too far."
Reached Wednesday, Baxley said he doesn't think there was anything wrong with what he has said.
"The pro-life movement is multicultural, multiracial," he said. "All I am saying is civilizations do die if they have a low birth rate and don't replace themselves. A new society replaces them. That's just what happens."
Researchers have identified other factors for falling birth rates in developed countries, including more women in the workplace and greater access to contraception. The U.S. birth rate has been dropping despite abortions hitting a historic low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Anti-abortion lawmakers in Florida are vowing to introduce more bills next year, following the lead of other states. Alabama outlawed nearly all abortions with no exception for rape or incest. Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia, Utah. Arkansas and Missouri joined the push to test Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that established a constitutional right to an abortion.
GOP state Rep. Mike Hill of Pensacola said during an event last week that God told him "as plain as day" to sponsor a bill just as restrictive as Alabama's, according to the Pensacola News Journal. Hill sponsored a bill that would have allowed for exceptions for rape and incest, but now, he thinks it doesn't go far enough.
"He said, 'You remove those exceptions and you file it again,'" the News Journal quoted Hill telling a group called the Women for Responsible Legislation about his conversation with God. "And I said, 'Yes, Lord, I will.' It's coming back. It's coming back. We are going to file that bill without any exceptions just like what we saw passed in Alabama."
Democrats are also upping their efforts.
U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., said Wednesday she is sponsoring a bill in Congress that seeks to block such state bans. While the bill has a chance in the Democratic-controlled House, it likely won't get a hearing in the Republican-led Senate.
"The women of this country are in a fight for our lives _ not with a foreign adversary but with the Trump administration and Republican Legislatures across this country that have basically declared war on the women," she said.
As a dozen or so women holding signs and coat hangers stood behind Frankel, a man periodically shouted "baby killers" at them.
