Florida sued over attempts to shut down TV ad in
favor of abortion rights
================================================

The coalition behind a Florida ballot measure to
enshrine abortion rights into the state
constitution sued the state's health department
on Wednesday over its attempts to shut down an
television advertisement supporting the measure.

The lawsuit is the latest volley in an
escalating war between the coalition, Floridians
Protecting Freedom, and Florida's rightwing
government, which has alarmed civil rights
groups, fair elections organizations and even
the Federal Communications Commission over its
tactics to undermine the ballot initiative,
which will appear before voters in November.

Earlier this month, the Florida health
department sent cease-and-desist letters to
local news stations over an ad featuring a
woman, identified as Caroline from Tampa,
Florida, who speaks about being diagnosed with
brain cancer while pregnant.

"The doctors knew if I did not end my pregnancy,
I would lose my baby, I would lose my life, and
my daughter would lose her mom," Caroline says
in the ad. "Florida has now banned abortion even
in cases like mine."

The letters, which were signed by John Wilson,
Florida health department general counsel, said
the claim that women can't get life-saving
abortions in Florida was "categorically false"
and the state had the authority to criminally
prosecute media outlets that continued to run
Caroline's ad. (Wilson left that job days after
sending those letters.) At least one TV station
stopped airing it, according to the lawsuit
filed by Floridians Protecting Freedom.

Although Florida's six-week abortion ban permits
the procedure in medical emergencies, doctors
across the country say such exceptions are
worded so vaguely that they force doctors to
deny patients abortions or wait until they get
sick enough to treat them legally. A New York
doctor recently told the Guardian that she had
treated a woman with an ectopic pregnancy -
which is nonviable and potentially life-
threatening if left untreated - who had been
turned away from a Florida hospital.

If Floridians successfully pass the pro-abortion
rights ballot measure - which needs 60% of the
vote to succeed - the state's ban would be
overturned.

"The state of Florida's crusade against
amendment 4 is unconstitutional government
interference - full stop," Lauren Brenzel,
director of the campaign for the ballot measure,
said in a statement on Wednesday. "The state
cannot coerce television stations into removing
political speech from the airwaves in an attempt
to keep their abortion ban in place."

Over the last several weeks, Florida's
government, led by its Republican governor, Ron
DeSantis, has levied a series of attacks on the
measure and its backers. Law enforcement
officials have investigated people who signed a
petition to get the measure on the ballot, while
the Florida agency for healthcare administration
created a website attacking the amendment.
Floridians Protecting Freedom sued over that
website, but a judge ruled it could remain up.

On Friday, the Florida office of election crimes
and security issued a report claiming that the
agency believed Floridians Protecting Freedom
may have "submitted a large number of forged
signatures or fraudulent petitions" in support
of the measure. In a statement, Brenzel denied
the claims and said: "What we are seeing now is
nothing more than dishonest distractions and
desperate attempts to silence voters."

In its Wednesday lawsuit, which was filed in the
US district court for the northern district of
Florida in Tallahassee, Floridians Protecting
Freedom asks the court to declare the cease-and-
desist letters to be "unconstitutional coercion
and viewpoint discrimination" and to block
Florida's government from following through on
their threats of prosecution of media outlets.

"Opponents of the measure are, of course, free
to engage in their own oppositional speech," the
lawsuit reads, "but the state cannot use its
coercive powers as the state to attempt to chill
or suppress the speech of FPF or others who
would speak in support of the amendment or
facilitate that speech".

The lawsuit names Wilson as a defendant in his
individual capacity, as well as the Florida
surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo. Florida's health
department did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.

Florida is one of 10 states with an abortion-
related measure on the ballot this year.
Although Nevada and Arizona - two key
presidential battlegrounds - also have similar
measures, Florida's may be the most high-
profile, because it would restore abortion
access to a state that had become a southern
abortion haven after the US supreme court
overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. Its six-week ban
went into effect earlier this year.



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