The Texas abortion vigilante law isn’t just dodging the oversight of the courts, it’s helping Republicans redefine what’s a “moderate” abortion ban. Case in point: Florida. Florida is one of at least 13 states to have introduced legislation limiting or banning abortion in 2022 alone. 

Florida Republicans are billing themselves as taking the reasonable middle road … as they propose a bill with restrictions on abortion that are absolutely unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade and the decades of precedent since, which has allowed abortion to the point of fetal viability, usually 22 to 24 weeks. The 15-week ban being proposed in Florida is modeled on the Mississippi law now waiting for a Supreme Court decision. That decision by the far-right Trump court is widely expected to overturn Roe v. Wade—as the Mississippi law was designed to do.

Overturning the decades of Supreme Court precedent affirming abortion as a constitutional right is an extreme thing. But once Texas had passed its law banning abortion after just six weeks and putting enforcement in the hands of individual vigilantes, Republicans started talking about 15 weeks as a moderate compromise. 

Immediately following the passage of the Texas law, a couple of Florida Republican lawmakers announced they would introduce a copycat bill. But instead, what the state’s Republicans have moved ahead on is a 15-week ban that’s a copycat of Mississippi’s bill, calling it “very reasonable” and “generous.” 

“We’re not banning anything. We’re not being mean,” said state Sen. Kelli Stargel, one of the bill’s chief sponsors. “We’re not taking away a woman’s opportunity.” In that she was echoing Chief Justice John Roberts, who said, during oral arguments on the Mississippi law, “Viability, it seems to me, doesn’t have anything to do with choice. If it really is an issue about choice, why is 15 weeks not enough time?”

If we take that question as anything other than rhetorical, there are answers to it. Most, but not all, people realize they are pregnant well before 15 weeks, but those who don’t are likely to be among the most vulnerable, including those who are children themselves. Additionally, anyone passingly familiar with the U.S. health care system will realize that abortions, like most medical procedures, come with out-of-pocket costs. For many, coming up with that money could take a few weeks. Finding a provider and an available appointment could take a few weeks. And, significantly, 15 weeks is several weeks before an anatomy scan is performed, and that’s a moment when serious fetal abnormalities can be detected—the kind of abnormalities that lead many people to terminate pregnancies that were very much wanted.

The Florida bill has passed a committee vote and is expected to pass the legislature. Gov. Ron DeSantis has expressed support for it. What’s particularly dangerous about Florida moving to ban abortion after 15 weeks—once the Supreme Court allows it—is that Florida has had the least restrictive abortion laws in the southeastern United States, providing a resource for people from surrounding states. Taking that away will hurt not just women in Florida, but in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and beyond.

Some militantly anti-abortion Republicans in Florida are making noises about being angry that DeSantis and the legislature aren’t doing something more extreme. But others “knew we could never get [the Texas-style] bill passed,” because Florida voters are “not there yet.” That caution in not trying to pass the most high-profile, extreme type of bill extends to other aspects of the push for what is, let’s be absolutely clear, still a very extreme abortion ban. State Sen. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat who is a fierce opponent of abortion bans, thinks Republicans are trying to keep the 15-week ban from becoming an issue in the 2022 elections. “They don’t want to wake up the Democrats.” 

It’s not just Eskamani. The executive director of Florida Voice for the Unborn, who doesn’t think the ban goes far enough, told The Washington Post, Republicans “seemed to want it to get the least amount of publicity possible.”

There’s a reason for that: They’re doing something that’s extreme and very bad for Floridians.