Republican State Rep Charles Van Zant Wants Doctors to Go to Jail for Abortion

​After passing four different bills last year placing restrictions on abortion, is the Republican dominated Florida legislature ready to totally ban abortion in Florida? House Republican Charles Van Zant hopes so. He's once again introducing his "Florida for Life" bill that would almost completely outlaw abortion in the state and send doctors to jail for performing one. Van Zant, it's worth noting, thinks abortion is some sort conspiracy carried out by a shady population control movement.

The bill would allow abortions to be carried out only if the life of the mother was in danger. Exceptions for rape and incest are not included. Furthermore, as Van Zant sees it, doctors who perform abortions should be sent to jail for murder.

"Absolutely. That would be a murder," the Keystone Republican told Creative Loafing Tampa. "He would be involved in the death of the lives of an infant child and certainly there would be penalties."

Of course, Van Zant's opinions on the topic of abortion seems to veer towards crazy conspiracy theory land.

"It's simply not illegal to have an abortion, that's the problem," he continued in his Creative Loafing interview. "It's not unconstitutional. There's nothing in the Constitution that gives the mother the right to murder their unborn child. Or a doctor. This is a scam on the American public by abortionists and by the population control movement. Eugenics and others who are out there from gosh, since the Civil War, I mean we've seen it over and over and over for decades and decades, and we have the abortion movement in our nation that is no more than the population control mechanism of the federal government because they fund them and support them."

Clearly a woman's right to chose has nothing to do with reproduction rights. It's obviously a scam carried out by some sort of population control movement.

Van Zant has introduced similar bills in the past, but those all failed to gain traction. Whether or not Van Zant finds success, the legislature will hear at least two other new bills that place even more restrictions on clinics carrying out the procedure.

Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.