Ron DeSantis Administration Sued After Threats To News Stations Over Pro-Choice Ads

On Oct 16, 2024

With less than three weeks until Election Day, the war between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and supporters of the state’s pro-choice ballot measure is raging.

Floridians Protecting Freedom, the abortion rights collective behind Amendment 4, filed a lawsuit Wednesday morning against DeSantis’ Department of Health, accusing the agency of political censorship. The suit is in direct response to a cease-and-desist letter sent by the department to multiple TV news channels earlier this month that threatened to bring criminal charges against local outlets that aired an advertisement in support of the abortion rights measure.

The cease-and-desist letter is “an escalation of a broader State campaign to attack Amendment 4 using public resources and government authority to advance the State’s preferred characterization of its anti-abortion laws as the ‘truth’ and denigrate opposing viewpoints as ‘lies,’” the suit claims. (Scroll to the bottom of this article to read the full suit.)

Floridians Protecting Freedom states that the Health Department’s “campaign of intimidation” has caused at least one channel in Fort Myers to stop airing the Yes On 4 advertisement.

“The state of Florida’s crusade against Amendment 4 is unconstitutional government interference — full stop,” Lauren Brenzel, Yes On 4 campaign director, said in a news release. “The State cannot coerce television stations into removing political speech from the airwaves in an attempt to keep their abortion ban in place.”

The Florida governor has spent substantial amounts of taxpayer money to fight Amendment 4, which would overturn DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban and restore access until fetal viability, or around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

The DeSantis administration weaponized a nonpartisan government agency to spread misinformation about the pro-choice amendment, claiming that the current six-week abortion ban is “designed to protect women from dangerous and unsanitary conditions.” The administration also sent election police to investigate petition signatures already verified by the state, litigated against the amendment during a monthslong court battle to keep the measure off the ballot, and added a misleading fiscal impact statement to appear alongside the measure on Election Day.

Just this week, Florida’s Office of Election Crimes and Security released a 348-page report accusing Floridians Protecting Freedom of “widespread election fraud” when the group collected the signatures necessary to get Amendment 4 on the ballot. The election crimes office hit the amendment sponsor with a $328,000 fine, despite the fact that the state has already verified petition signatures and Floridians have begun voting on Amendment 4 via mail-in-ballots. Brenzel, Yes On 4′s campaign director, denied the accusation, and Floridians Protecting Freedom plans to fight the fine, according to the Miami Herald.

The cease-and-desist letter claimed that the Yes On 4 ad, titled “Caroline,” violates the state’s so-called “sanitary nuisance” law, which is meant to curb conditions that can threaten or impair Floridians’ health. The DeSantis administration is applying the law — normally meant to address issues such as overflowing septic tanks — to the 30-second ad in which Caroline, a Tampa mother, talks about being diagnosed with brain cancer while pregnant. Caroline got a lifesaving abortion in 2020 after her diagnosis, but she believes she would not have been able to get one today under the state’s six-week abortion ban.

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The Florida Health Department claimed that the ad is “false” and “dangerous” because the state’s ban includes an exception for the life and health of the mother. In reality, the law does not offer specifics on how sick or near death a pregnant person needs to be in order to qualify for a lifesaving abortion. This lack of clarity has led to physicians delaying lifesaving care in fear of criminal punishments. Several Florida women have nearly bled out and died due to confusion around the abortion ban’s health- and lifesaving exception. It’s particularly unclear when the exception applies to cancer patients like Caroline.

“The State’s attempts to silence me are not only disheartening, they sting and are an abuse of power,” Caroline said in the same news release. “The choice and ability to have an abortion when I was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, extended my life so I could spend more time with my young daughter and husband. Now, because of Florida’s abortion ban, women like me are unable to make medical decisions with their families and doctors — that’s cruel and unacceptable.”

Floridians Protecting Freedom pointed out in the lawsuit that the state Health Department’s cease-and-desist letter was “so egregious” that even the Federal Communications Commission weighed in. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote earlier this month that “threats against broadcast stations for airing content that conflicts with the government’s views are dangerous and undermine the fundamental principle of free speech.”

Amendment 4 will be in front of Florida voters on Election Day, and needs 60% of the vote to pass.

“[Floridians Protecting Freedom] is running and intends to continue running television advertisements and to engage in other political speech advocating for the passage of Amendment 4 and calling attention to the dangerous consequences of current Florida law on women’s rights and health,” the suit reads. “It is intolerable that FPF do so with the State dangling a sword of Damocles over anyone who would facilitate that core political expression.”

Read Floridians Protecting Freedom’s full lawsuit below.