Florida attorney general pushes for fetal personhood and an end to all abortions in state

In a video podcast with an anti-abortion activist released earlier this month, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier boasted that he would "use every tool in his office" to eliminate abortion clinics in Florida.

"I'm excited to go fight for truth, fight for life, and take the enemy down using any tool we have above and beyond just our heartbeat bill," Uthmeier said, referring to the state's current six-week abortion ban.

He also discussed his efforts to steer an obscure family court proceeding through the judicial system to push for "fetal personhood."

"It is going to bring the conversation of fetal personhood and life front and center," he said during a podcast with the anti-abortion activist Lila Rose. "Is this a human being? Which I believe truthfully, factually, the answer is unequivocally yes."

Fetal personhood is the highly controversial belief that an embryo and fetus are entitled to the same rights as anyone who has been born. If he is successful, it could end all abortions in Florida, even in cases of rape and incest, because if an embryo or a fetus is a person, then they cannot be terminated, no matter how they were conceived.

Fetal personhood would also likely eliminate, or at a minimum severely restrict, people who seek to start a family using surrogacy and in vitro fertilization.

His comments now bring to the forefront the issue of abortion, surrogacy, and IVF in his race for attorney general.

A devout Catholic, Uthmeier, a Republican, was appointed to the post in February 2025 by Governor Ron DeSantis. He is running against Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez.

It is not clear how Uthmeier's comments about abortion will impact this year's election. Two years ago, Florida was the epicenter in the fight over abortion.

After the state Legislature enacted the six-week abortion ban, a citizen initiative placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2024 that would have allowed a woman to end her pregnancy up until viability, or approximately 22 weeks, which was the standard that had been permitted in the state for decades before Roe v Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A clear majority of voters, 57 percent, voted to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. Florida, however, requires amendments to secure 60 percent of the vote to pass.

Uthmeier, who was DeSantis's chief of staff at the time, said defeating the abortion amendment in 2024 "was the most important fight we'd ever been in."

DeSantis described Uthmeier as "a bulldog" and said one of the reasons he appointed Uthmeier to be attorney general was because of his efforts to beat both the abortion amendment, known as Amendment 4, as well as Amendment 3, which would have legalized marijuana.

"That was not an easy fight," DeSantis said at Uthmeier's swearing-in ceremony. "No one thought that it could be successful, and yet we would not have succeeded in that fight if it wasn't for James's leadership."

Since becoming attorney general, Uthmeier has used the power of his office in ways never seen before.

In one of his first moves after being appointed, Uthmeier intervened in a case of a 17-year-old girl who had asked a judge to allow her to get an abortion. Florida law requires parental approval before a juvenile can get an abortion, but the law also allows, in certain instances, to get what is known as a judicial waiver. Uthmeier used the case to attack the constitutionality of judicial waivers and convinced the court of appeals to strike down the law.

Uthmeier is also currently suing Planned Parenthood, claiming they lie to women by telling them the abortion pill is safe. A review by Politifact found Uthmeier was cherry-picking studies, and his claims were ruled mostly false.

But that hasn't deterred him. He is still pressing the case, and his goal is clear – he is trying to bankrupt Planned Parenthood and force it to close.

"If we ultimately do win and reach a verdict, they could be liable for billions, which could bankrupt that company," he said during the podcast.

But the case that has the potential to have the biggest impact is an obscure surrogacy case in Broward County. Uthmeier, the father of four, is challenging the state's surrogacy statutes, arguing that the fetus is a person and any surrogacy agreement is unconstitutional because the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which did away with slavery, does not allow for the selling of people.

"Homosexual men from France want to come and purchase a baby through surrogacy when they don't have a legal right to do it in their own country," Uthmeier said during the podcast, which first appeared on the YouTube page of Live Action, an anti-abortion group, on October 14.

"And they're purchasing women in Florida, the wombs of Floridian women," interrupted Rose, the founder of Live Action.

"That's right," Uthmeier responded.

"To have their babies, and these are like just men from random countries," Rose added.

"That's correct," Uthmeier said.

The case is a little more complex. Surrogacy has been legal in Florida since 1993 and has helped thousands of women start or grow their families, according to its supporters. Generally, there has been little controversy in Florida surrounding the process, although earlier this year, the Florida Legislature prohibited individuals from certain terrorist countries (China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Russia, and North Korea) from hiring a surrogate in Florida.

Uthmeier is attempting to go much farther. And the case he is using to advance his religious and moral beliefs against abortion started in Broward County in December, when two men from France, wanting to start a family, hired a Florida woman to carry their child. The woman did so willingly, and there is no allegation that she was forced or tricked. Nor is there a suggestion that she changed her mind and wanted to keep the baby.

She was represented by an attorney, and, as is standard in surrogacy cases, there was an agreement – a contract – between the French couple and the woman.

The entire affair was overseen by a family court judge, and the proceedings are supposed to be confidential. But the day after the baby was born, Uthmeier filed an emergency motion in family court to intervene in the proceedings.

It is not known how Uthmeier learned about the sealed proceedings. The family court judge in the case, Marlon Weiss, was appointed by DeSantis in 2025 to the Circuit Court in Broward. Last month, DeSantis elevated Judge Weiss to the Fourth District Court of Appeals.

In his own sealed brief, Uthmeier cited Bible verses and argued that surrogacy agreements are unconstitutional because one person cannot contract for another. 

"If you are buying and selling a human being, what is that? That's slavery. This takes us all the way back to the emancipation proclamation discussion," he told Rose during the podcast.

But while he described surrogacy as "very dangerous and horrific," he said he viewed the case as an opportunity "to bring the conversation of fetal personhood and life front and center."

CBS News Miami has learned the child in the case has already left the country. To avoid Uthmeier's efforts, the French fathers adopted the infant with the mother's blessing, and they took their child home to France.

Uthmeier, however, is continuing to press his arguments in state court. A hearing is scheduled in the state court of appeals in January, and it is believed that Uthmeier's ultimate goal is to get the case before the State Supreme Court, where he will push for the justices to rule on the question of "fetal personhood."

Family law attorney Karen Persis, who is representing a coalition of family law attorneys now fighting Uthmeier, said she was shocked by Uthmeier's slavery argument, calling it a "pretty significant misunderstanding of how surrogacy operates."

"I've been doing this for 13 years, I've never heard that argument be made," she said. "I'm a big believer in families and children and women's rights, and I certainly wouldn't involve myself in anything that I felt was trafficking a child or a woman or anybody. This is just a safe alternative method for people to be able to build their families when they otherwise cannot do so."

Charlotte Danciu, who has handled surrogacy cases for 30 years, said she has never seen a case where the state's attorney general would get involved.

"I don't think it's ever happened," she said.

She said she was stunned and angered by Uthmeier's efforts.

"I have women who've sat in my office, hundreds of women who have had cancer, who've had their hysterectomies, who've lost babies repeatedly at twenty weeks gestation, who long to be parents, and that's why they're here," she said. "And I see that every day in my practice. He's never seen that, but it's easy for them to say, `Oh, outlaw it in Florida.' And that's what he's trying to do."

Persis said if Uthmeier is successful, it will have dramatic ramifications.

"The Attorney General has made very clear in interviews that he believes that embryos are people," Persis said. "And so if we go this route and embryos are considered to be people, which is what he's looking to achieve, and he's not been shy about that at all, then we need to be very concerned, not just about surrogacy, but also people engaging in egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation, and even IVF."

Asked by Rose if he thought "we're going to see an end to abortion in Florida in your lifetime or in the near future," Uthmeier responded, "I certainly pray so. I do believe we have the truth on our side and the truth will prevail."

During his swearing-in ceremony in February 2025, Uthmeier made it clear he would be guided by his own sense of right and wrong and by his faith.

"As I put my hand on that Bible, I was reminded of a verse from Proverbs, a verse that I turn to daily," he said. "To do what is right and just for the Lord is greater than any sacrifice."

He then slowly repeated the words, "To do what is right and just."

"We will not stand idly by as the left tries to infiltrate our institutions and use the court system to indoctrinate our kids," he said. "We will fight the activists that try to weaken our duly enacted laws, that try to challenge our constitutional order, and that try to harm the unborn."