DeSantis: Leaked U.S. Supreme Court document on abortion is a “huge breach”

A day after protesters across Florida rallied to uphold abortion rights, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday reiterated that a leaked U.S. Supreme Court document related to the Roe v. Wade case “was a huge breach” of protocol.

At the same time, DeSantis did not comment Wednesday on the potential of overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nearly 50 years ago.

A leaked draft of a pivotal Supreme Court opinion this week showed that the high court appears on track to overturn the landmark abortion decision. If that’s the case, at least 22 states have laws or constitutional amendments in place to quickly ban abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

But the institute’s assessment for Florida is different: It’s one of the additional four states “that have political composition, history, and other indicators — such as recent actions to limit access to abortion — that show they are likely to ban abortion as soon as possible without federal protections in place.”

Whether Florida’s governor and Legislature would outright ban abortion is not clear at this juncture.

DeSantis said he’ll probably see a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Mississippi abortion ban at the end of this month and into June, “and we will take a look at it at that time.”

As to the leak at the U.S. Supreme Court, DeSantis said:

“I would just caution people, you know, you can leak stuff out of a court, which is really unprecedented. But let’s see when you actually have something rendered. Because how they negotiate these things, I don’t think any of us really know when you get behind that — you know, they keep it all very secretive. And I think this was a huge breach of kind of their protocol and everything in terms of how they’re doing it.”

DeSantis made the remarks in Pinellas County Wednesday, where he announced plans to approve $14 million in the 2022-23 state budget for ways to research and mitigate the red tide blooms that can foul Florida’s beaches and waterways.

Although the Legislature hasn’t submitted the $112.1 billion state budget yet for DeSantis’ signature, he said during a news conference in Clearwater that he would OK that red tide appropriation.

Red tides happen nearly every summer off Florida’s Gulf Coast when a type of algae overproduces and produces toxins that can kill marine life and even harm humans.

Florida Phoenix editor Diane Rado contributed to this report.