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October 3, 2024 26 mins
The search for truth continues with a follow-up discussion with attorney James Chilemmi regarding the specifics of Amendment 4 and particulars of settled Florida law that inform the language within the proposed Amendment. 

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Episode Transcript

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>> Rebeca (00:16):
I'm Rebeca Seitz, and this is right
to Life.
Welcome to the 7th episode of this journey
we're on to chase wisdom and get
understanding regarding the issue of
abortion. Since starting this
journey, I've received feedback that runs the
gamut from gratitude for creating a space

(00:38):
devoid of politics to talk about this issue all,
the way to words of condemnation. Because
I'm not toeing a political or a denominational party
line. You can probably imagine some of
what those responses have looked like.
But at the end of the day, what matters
to me, what I want to live

(00:58):
my life in accordance with, is
truth. I find
safety, security,
and peace in truth.
And so every time I encounter a
point for or against amendment four,
I research it. And, today

(01:21):
you get to hear how I research things.
Namely, I go to the people who
have the information and education
to answer the questions truthfully.
So today I welcomed attorney James
Chileme, who himself is not
affiliated with either the republican or Democrat

(01:41):
parties, back into the one c studio
to specifically address the talking points
of those who are encouraging people to vote
no on amendment four.
Let's see what truth we can find.
Come, let us reason together.

(02:05):
James Cialemi, welcome back to the right to Life show.

>> James Chilemi (02:08):
Thank you so much for having me.

>> Rebeca (02:09):
I appreciate you coming back here, because some questions
keep coming up for us. And I thought, you know, I need a legal
mind. That's not me. But I do know who has
one. You sell yourself short. So I thought, let me
just. Let me see if he could come back in here. So I really appreciate you taking the
time. one of the things that has come
up, one of the questions that has come up is this term

(02:30):
that's in the amendment. Of course, the amendment itself
is two sentences, and one of the terms that is used in
it is healthcare provider.
And one of the objections that I've been hearing
is that that term is not defined in the
amendment. And so it could mean
the receptionist at a planned parenthood calling

(02:51):
themselves your healthcare provider and saying that it's fine for you
to get an abortion. And so I wondered,
is that a defined term in
Florida law somewhere, or is it truly just not defined?

>> James Chilemi (03:02):
So I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. A lot
of pushback has been to the fact that it does
not say doctor, it does not say physician, it says
healthcare provider. And more so than that,
some of the,
adversarial, some of the stuff
that's out there right now that's on the adversarial side

(03:22):
is saying that that is purposefully
done, that the reason why a, ah,
healthcare provider and not doctors put in there is because they want it
to be like we talked about last time, ambiguous.
However, in this case, I don't believe it is
ambiguous. I think once there is a
defined definition in the Florida statutes, which there is
for healthcare provider, it can't go above and

(03:45):
beyond what's in that definitional section. And so if we
look at what a healthcare provider is, it's someone who's
licensed, to perform abortions.

>> Rebeca (03:53):
Licensed by the state.

>> James Chilemi (03:54):
Correct. So in terms of who has licensure
to perform abortions, the only people in the state of Florida who
have license to perform abortions are doctors,
and most of the time, they're board certified. So
it couldn't be any clearer. I guess you have to
kind of have an understanding or background in this
to understand that this is already defined and that a

(04:15):
doctor is the only person under this provision that would be able to perform
an abortion.

>> Rebeca (04:19):
And would a doctor be the only one that could
prescribe the abortion?

>> James Chilemi (04:23):
As far as I know, it would have to be somebody who has
the license to do so. And the only person that could do that would
be someone who has the medical license in order to do that. And
so that would be the physician. And like I said before,
most of the time, these are extremely accomplished board certified
physicians.

>> Rebeca (04:38):
So do you know in what section of
Florida law they define
healthcare provider?

>> James Chilemi (04:46):
I thought you might ask that.

>> Rebeca (04:47):
And so I love that you can
anticipate.

>> James Chilemi (04:50):
No, there. Yeah, so, section. I mean, there's several
sections, obviously, that mention, ah,
healthcare provider. I believe the one that would be
most applicable to what we're talking about
would, be section
381.026, which is the Florida Patients Bill
of Rights and responsibilities. And so, as the

(05:11):
Florida patients Bill of Rights and responsibilities, you can
imagine this is a very germane statute,
in defining several of these terms.
And, section C of subsection
one is healthcare provider means a
physician licensed under chapter 458, an
osteopathic physician licensed under 459, a
podiac physician licensed under 461, or an

(05:32):
advanced practice registered nurse registered under
464. Now, as far as I know, I'm
not necessarily sure, again, not an
expert on abortion, not an expert on the procedures, don't
really have that, that much of a. Of a
learned understanding to opine on it. I'm not
sure if a registered nurse would be licensed to perform an abortion.
However, I do know that when these, when abortions

(05:54):
are performed, they do require licensure. And that
licensure is that of a physician.

>> Rebeca (05:59):
So unless you have. Let me make sure I understand what you're
saying. Unless the state has licensed you
to be a health care provider, you
are not a health care provider.
So as it's used in this amendment.

>> James Chilemi (06:13):
Correct. That's the way I understand it.

>> Rebeca (06:15):
Okay, so it couldn't be the
receptionist at a clinic or somebody who
just hung out a shingle and called themselves a, life coach
or whatever. Not that there's anything wrong with life coaches. I'm just saying
that's what I've been hearing from the vote
no crowd, is that it could be anybody
who says, I'm here to
help you with the health of your life in some way, shape,

(06:37):
form, or fashion. And what you're saying is, no, they would have to be
licensed by the state as a healthcare
provider.

>> James Chilemi (06:44):
Correct. And when I was watching some of the
material that was going, I was pushing back against this
amendment. I heard someone say that a massage
therapist would be able to perform an abortion.
And I can't think of anything more asinine that this is the
misinformation that's being pushed out, or
that a tattoo artist or somebody that would
have any sort of tangential association to

(07:06):
healthcare, or looking after your
health. It makes no sense. And if you look
through the bevy of case law, but also the Florida
statutes, I don't think it could be any clearer.

>> Rebeca (07:17):
Okay, good. So we don't have to worry that
healthcare provider is not a defined term. It
isn't that it's defined in the amendment. It's that it's an
already defined term in Florida law.
So they didn't have to say that
entire definition, 100%.

>> James Chilemi (07:34):
It's what's called codified. Healthcare provider is
codified into law at this point. And so when you look at that,
right, this is part of our job, is when we see
certain things as lawyers, especially when we're
trying to prove a case one way or the other, is hm to what does that
mean? And in the applicable realm of what we're talking
about, healthcare provider couldn't be any
clearer.

>> Rebeca (08:02):
Okay, so, one of the other words that I've
heard be questioned, that I think we covered this
with our previous episode with Doctor Brothers, was that word
viability. And she did let us
know that viability is around 22 to 24 weeks,
as determined by the physician. It's, different with every
pregnancy, pregnancy to pregnancy, but it's around 22

(08:22):
to 24 weeks. And that. So that leads me to the next
question that I'm getting, because, you know,
our listeners, most of our listeners, I think, have
my background of coming from an anti abortion, pro
Life community. And so a lot of
us, we're encountering this kind of information for the first
time, or maybe the first few times. And so we're still. There's a lot

(08:43):
of wrapping your mind around this
kind of information and how it jives and squares with what you've
already been taught. And so
one of the. One of the concerns that I have gotten
from, my pro life, anti abortion
community is that this amendment
allows for late term
abortions. Does it allow

(09:05):
for late term abortions? Because when I
read the amendment, this one struck me as, that
can't be right, because it says, up to the point of fetal
viability is determined by a health care provider.
So if fetal viability
is 22 to 24 weeks, according to an OB
gynae, then is there
a way that this amendment would allow for late term

(09:28):
abortions?

>> James Chilemi (09:29):
No. The answer simply is
no. what this amendment,
what the effect of passing this amendment and enshrining it into
the Florida constitution would do is return us
to something more similar to the
protections codified by Roe v. Wade. And what happened
there was they were protecting women's rights, rights

(09:51):
to an abortion, and their bodily autonomous, rights
to an abortion before fetal viability.
But like you just said, no, this would not allow for
late term abortions. It would have to be up until the
point of fetal viability, which, as we now understand it, generally
is 22 to 24 weeks.

>> Rebeca (10:07):
Got it. Okay. So that is not something that we need to be
concerned about. That if we vote yes on this amendment,
we're allowing abortions to happen in the 39th week or up to
the point of birth.

>> Announcer (10:16):
Correct?

>> Rebeca (10:17):
Got it. Okay, good. And then another thing. Good.
In that I'm happy to hear that is what I mean. Good.
because the way that doctor brothers explained
late term abortions to us, that is those, first of
all, they're incredibly rare. Incredibly rare.
Most women who need access to
abortion at that phase of a pregnancy

(10:39):
have planned to have that child. They have a
nursery ready, they have a name picked out, monogrammed
blankets, and they've had showers. And something
has gone horrible, horribly awry in the
pregnancy, and they know that this
child is not going to be viable at that point,
because something has gone wrong. And so rather than
force a woman to give birth to a child

(11:01):
that is going to either die during the
birth or shortly thereafter,
the woman is allowed to terminate the pregnancy early. The
woman is offered the ability to terminate the pregnancy
early rather than carry continued with that one,
two, three weeks, whatever it is.

>> James Chilemi (11:18):
That was my understanding as well. When you look into any
time that a late term abortion is,
whenever someone especially wants to talk about it, it's usually a
horror story that they tell.
and so, yeah, as you can imagine, that is not something that
the law wishes to, put
front and center is late term abortions and
codify protection for late term abortions. But just like you

(11:40):
said, sometimes, and as each pregnancy is
different, sometimes there are exceptions to the rule.

>> Rebeca (11:45):
Got it. Okay, so. But there's. There aren't any exceptions in
this amendment. This amendment is up to the point of fetal
viability. Or I guess, if it's for.
If the mom's going to die.

>> James Chilemi (11:55):
But that's a whole other situation, right, with medical emergencies. So
again, your licensed healthcare,
provider. Aka your doctor.
Would have to make that decision.

>> Rebeca (12:04):
Okay.

>> James Chilemi (12:05):
And again, again, like we spoke about in our previous
episode, under penalties of law,
under criminal penalties. So if they do make the wrong decision, if
it. If it is deemed by a court or by a prosecutor
that it wasn't an emergency, that this was just somebody who
forgot that they had a fetus.

>> Rebeca (12:22):
Inside of them, until 38 weeks and decided, I should
do something again.

>> James Chilemi (12:26):
The onus is going to be on the doctor because we have to remember there are no
criminal penalties enshrined in law for the
woman.

>> Rebeca (12:33):
Just for the doctor.

>> James Chilemi (12:34):
Just for the doctor. So. And like we spoke with
Dori, it gives the doctors pause whether we believe that's a
good thing, a bad thing, or what have you. it is a
deterrent for making willy nilly decisions that this
is a very serious decision. Anytime, a doctor
has to go one way or the other.

>> Rebeca (12:50):
I spoke with, a woman today who,
works with patients. And she said she's not a doctor,
but, she works with patients. And she told me the story
of a woman who ultimately had to go out of
the state, to get healthcare. And we talked about
how, you know, that is still an option. Right? You can
leave the state if you have the wherewithal to do
so, and you can go to another state where abortion

(13:13):
is allowed. But I thought about it when she was telling me
about that patient's story, and it
happened a long, long time ago, and the
patient ended up telling her own story to the media.
So it's out there and it's public knowledge, but I just sat and thought
about how much more
difficult that must have been that now you
have to make it a whole trip, you know, and

(13:36):
all the expense of a trip somewhere and
to go get your healthcare that you needed because we didn't have it. And
so, I don't know, it just seems. It seems like we're
putting. Making life harder for a
woman at a time when we would.
I would like for that to not happen. I would like for
it to not be harder for us to live and to live

(13:56):
our lives.

>> James Chilemi (13:57):
The good news is, or I should say the good news
to your point, if this is something you're concerned about, which
I know a lot of women are and a lot of people are.
On both sides. I believe there are 15 states
that on, election day and when we have to go vote, are
proposing similar amendments to protect
fetal vi or protect a woman's bodily autonomy up

(14:18):
until the point of fetal viability.

>> Rebeca (14:19):
Got it.
Okay. two more things. One, there's a concern
out there, that's been voiced to me, and that I think
is on one of the vote no websites somewhere that says
if we pass this amendment, taxpayers will have to pay
for abortions. Is there anything in the two sentences of

(14:41):
this amendment that says taxpayers are going to have to pay for
abortions? I have not read that, but I thought, is it in there? And
I'm missing it.

>> James Chilemi (14:48):
No, I think this is a.
This is a talking point, again, of misinformation, and
there is a ton of misinformation that is
swirling around this amendment and the passing
of it. I don't know where that comes from.
I guess if you wanted to say that
some. If you had a medical facility

(15:09):
that did receive government subsidies and were performing abortions, that
somehow you could draw a crooked line of causation
between those. But in terms of direct taxpayer funding for this,
there's nothing I've seen.

>> Rebeca (15:19):
It's not in there. Okay. The final thing I want to ask you about,
and. And this one comes up a lot. It has come up a
lot with our listeners. I have been asked about it a
lot, and I have said, I am not an attorney. This is my understanding,
but I'm having our attorney back on
to answer this. So with
regard to parental
notification and parental permission for

(15:42):
minors who are seeking abortions, my
understanding is that current Florida
law does now, and pretty
much has always required
parents to provide permission for
minors to receive abortions.
This amendment. I do not read anything in this amendment
that is attempting to nullify that

(16:04):
already in place provision.
Wherever parents have to give their
permission before a minor can
access abortion. Is that still the case? Does this
amendment change that so.

>> James Chilemi (16:18):
No. No, it doesn't, because there is a
constitutional, provision as well as in the
bill itself. or, excuse me, in the amendment
itself says this amendment does not change the
legislature's constitutional authority to require
notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an
abortion. That language is in there. also
there is a flaw. There's Florida law and Florida

(16:40):
constitutional law that requires both notification and
consent. So I don't want to.

>> Rebeca (16:45):
I don't want to. I don't want to, run past that, because that's. That's
what I found out, is that there are only six states in the
entire nation that require what you just said,
both notification and parental consent.
And Florida is one of them. Right?

>> James Chilemi (16:59):
Correct.

>> Rebeca (16:59):
And that doesn't change this.

>> James Chilemi (17:02):
And this is the funny part, Rebeca, is that this happened in
2020. That when the. When Roe v. Wade
was overturned and the 15 week abortion ban went into
place, that law went into place with it. The notification and
consent, that's when we got it. So people that I hear
bemoaning and that are terrified that the
fact that now, there is even a small

(17:23):
chance, let's call it a small chance, that
parental notification or parental consent will be done away with.
Well, where were you the last 31 years before
2020, when there was no parental notification or consent
required? I mean, 1989 was the last time
that anything like this was even. Even in law.
So up. And from 1989 till 2020, there was

(17:43):
no notification or consent required. There is now.
And this amendment protects it.

>> Rebeca (17:48):
This amendment protects that the parent
still must be notified, and it does not get
rid of the existing law that the parent must
provide permission.

>> James Chilemi (17:58):
The Supreme Court of Florida has issued a
very clear opinion that parental notification and consent
are required. Now, what I think
our governor is perhaps
concerned about, perhaps it's political talking points, perhaps it's. Its
deeply held catholic belief. I'm not sure one way or the other, but what
I can say is what, he

(18:18):
potentially, and what people like him, in their opinions
are afraid of, is that these laws will then be
challenged. Once this amendment pass
passes, they will try to say that
similar to Roe v. Wade, the parental notification and
consent are now an infringement upon the
minors rights.

>> Rebeca (18:35):
But that would be a whole separate issue from this amendment. If
that were to happen, a case.

>> James Chilemi (18:39):
Would have to come first in the trial court, then to the appellate
court, and then it would have to be certified to the supreme Court. Supreme Court would
then have to. And the Supreme Court in the state of Florida, as we
all know, is more conservative, at least how it's currently
situated. the idea, in my legal
opinion, the idea that the Florida
Supreme Court, as it currently stands, would overturn
the parental notification and consent

(19:02):
law, I think is dubious at best.

>> Rebeca (19:04):
Okay, so just to reiterate, this amendment,
as it is written, of what we are voting for or
against on November 5, what we are voting about, I guess, is a better
word on November 5, this
amendment does not get rid of the
requirement to notify parents
and that the parent must give consent for the
abortion for a minor.

>> James Chilemi (19:25):
Correct. That notification and consent is codified
constitutionally in Florida law right now.

>> Rebeca (19:31):
Got it. Okay. I asked
someone on the yes on four side
to explain to me, if it doesn't affect it,
why is this sentence here? Because it is. It is a
little confusing. The amendment itself is two
sentences, and the second sentence is the one that you just read
where the amendment says this
doesn't do anything to the current law about,

(19:53):
parental notification. And she explained to
me that when you,
submit an amendment to the state constitution, your
amendment can only do one thing. You
cannot try to get five things accomplished in
one amendment, that your amendment has to be singularly
focused. And so they had to make

(20:13):
it clear that they were not trying to
affect parental notification and parental consent
with this amendment. They had to make that clear
so that if the question
arose of are you
also trying to get rid of parental notification consent, that
the sentence would be there and be clear that, no, that's not what this
amendment is about. This amendment is singularly focused

(20:36):
with enshrining the right to abortion up to the point of fetal
viability as determined by a healthcare practice. So
that part made sense to me. But if you don't know that. I didn't know
that. I didn't know you could only do one thing at a time in a
constitutional amendment.

>> James Chilemi (20:49):
No, I hear you.

>> Rebeca (20:49):
And I thought that's an easy point to get
confused about, of, well, if you're not trying to
change parental consent, parental notification, why is it there? Oh,
it's there because you're trying to make it clear
that you are not attempting
to impact that law with this amendment, that, what did you call
it? Codified. What did you.

>> James Chilemi (21:08):
Constitutional protection.

>> Rebeca (21:09):
Constitutional protections. So
just to recap, health care provider is a
defined term, correct. It requires licensure by
the state.

>> James Chilemi (21:18):
Correct.

>> Rebeca (21:19):
Already this amendment doesn't get rid of that
Right.

>> James Chilemi (21:22):
Correct.

>> Rebeca (21:23):
Parental notification is already required by the state.
This amendment doesn't get rid of that.

>> James Chilemi (21:28):
Correct.

>> Rebeca (21:28):
Parental permission is already required by
the state, and this amendment does not get rid of that.

>> James Chilemi (21:33):
And like you spoke about, I think they're completely bifurcated issues.
I don't think they're associated, when it's not
like when you pass a statute, when you pass Florida law and they have
congressional session and it goes through both chambers and it's
passed in the law by the. By the governor or vetoed by
the governor, what a lot of times senators and
congressmen will try to do is add what's

(21:54):
called pork into the bill. And so they'll
say it's a bill to protect the lives
of the homeless, and they'll put something in there about
subsidizing oil tankers off the coast.
Exactly. And so what we try to do with the constitutional
amendments or anything that is as
sacrosanct as the Constitution in the state of Florida
is. You're 100% correct. It's a one

(22:16):
issue. There's no pork, there are no earmarks or
no kickbacks. This is a single issue that
we have a supermajority vote on and super.

>> Rebeca (22:25):
Majority, meaning 60% of the voters
have to vote yes or no for yes or no
to work. Or is it that 60% have to vote yes, and if they
don't, it's just a no.

>> James Chilemi (22:35):
So 60% have to vote or it's a no.

>> Rebeca (22:39):
60% have to vote yes.

>> James Chilemi (22:41):
At least 60% have to vote yes.

>> Rebeca (22:43):
I've always wondered that, too. is it 60% of
registered voters or 60% of the number
of voters who vote?

>> James Chilemi (22:51):
Well, I'm hoping that the people who
vote in this election are registered voters.

>> Rebeca (22:57):
no, what I mean is, like, let's say you have 1000 registered
voters, but only 500 of them vote, and the other
500 stay home because we also know that 100% of
voters don't vote.

>> James Chilemi (23:06):
That's a good question. That's a good question.

>> Rebeca (23:07):
So is the 60% of the 500 who actually
voted or of the whole thousand?

>> James Chilemi (23:12):
The way I understand it, it's the people who vote.

>> Rebeca (23:14):
It's the people who vote. Okay. So it matters. It matters.

>> James Chilemi (23:16):
That's why, you know, rock the vote. And everybody's on every
side somewhere, rappers and country stars,
everybody's telling people to go out and vote. And I think that's one of the reasons.

>> Rebeca (23:25):
Got it. Okay. Thank you so much for coming on here
and answering this, because, what you've said is what I'm
encountering as well. There is a lot of misinformation and the
whole reason that I wanted to do this show is just to be very
clear with what is true and what is not.
What everybody decides to do with what is true is
between them and their God. If
they have one, if they worship one and

(23:48):
only, they will know what they did with that information when they
vote.

>> James Chilemi (23:52):
Rebecca, it's always a pleasure coming on here. what I can say
is that most people that I encounter on a day to day basis, whether
it be in my family, clients, friends,
most of them are single issue voters. And so what you can imagine,
if abortion is your issue, what
you're most either affected by, or that,
strikes you as something that is very important in society,

(24:13):
my heart goes out to you, because one way or the other,
having an opinion on it, I think is important.
However, forming those opinions based
upon categorical and empirical evidence are
very important. And so what you're doing here, I think, is
of the utmost importance to our society.

>> Rebeca (24:29):
Well, thank you for helping me do it. I appreciate it.

>> James Chilemi (24:31):
Anytime.

>> Rebeca (24:40):
If you have questions about amendment four,
maybe something your pastor said or you heard
in a television ad or saw on social media
that you want me to check out, my email
address is in the episode description for you.
Because here's the thing. When we are
standing with that ballot in hand on

(25:00):
November 5, it is incumbent upon
us not only that we know our
values, but that we know how
to vote in accordance with them.
No one will know. No one is
responsible for our vote, but each
of us individually.

(25:21):
Thank you for joining me on this journey so far.
I'm really grateful to be on it with you.

>> Announcer (25:29):
You've been listening to Right to Life on the
one 1C Story Network. If you have a story to
share or would like to learn more, please visit
righttolifestories.com. this show
is brought to you by the generous support of people who
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righttolifestories.com or get in

(25:49):
touch.

>> Singer (26:10):
The 1C Story Network for the
love of stories.
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