New York CNN —
“Simply put about Florida: It’s the First Amendment, idiot.”
That’s what a federal judge wrote Thursday, siding with a local TV station in an unusual dispute over pro-abortion TV ads.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker of the Northern District of Florida granted a temporary restraining order against Florida’s Surgeon General after the Florida Department of Health threatened criminal charges against the broadcast station that aired the ad. .
The controversy stems from a campaign ad by Floridians Defending Freedom, the group behind the Yes on 4 Campaign, which seeks to enshrine the right to abortion in Florida’s constitution. He is pushing a ballot measure that seeks to overturn Weekly’s abortion ban.
In the 30-second ad, brain tumor survivor Caroline says she wouldn’t have been able to get a life-saving abortion under state law.
“The doctors knew that if I didn’t terminate the pregnancy, I would lose the baby, I would lose my life, and my daughter would lose her mother,” she said on camera. “Florida currently prohibits abortion, even in cases like mine.”
The state health department, part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, which has actively campaigned against the pro-abortion amendment, called the ad’s claims “false” and “dangerous” to public health. Ta.
John Wilson, general counsel for the Department of Health, sent cease-and-desist letters to several TV stations that were airing the ad. Florida freedom groups later filed a lawsuit against Wilson and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, saying the threats amounted to “unconstitutional coercion and viewpoint discrimination,” and the state threatened to file suit. They urged the court to prohibit them from complying with the law.
On Thursday, a judge agreed that the health department’s threats amounted to “viewpoint discrimination” and said the group “demonstrates continued violations of First Amendment rights through threats of direct penalties for political speech.” “It shows considerable potential,” he wrote.
The judge’s order is in effect until Oct. 29 and effectively prohibits Ladapo from threatening local stations for airing Fourth Amendment ads.
Walker’s restraining order was granted less than a week after Wilson resigned. “A man is nothing without a conscience,” Wilson wrote in a letter obtained by the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald. It has become clear over the past few days that I will not be able to move forward.” ”
Mr. Wilson did not address the advertising controversy.
The state health department continues to claim that ads about abortion rights are “patently false and harmful to Florida’s public health.” “The truth is that Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act has always protected the life of the mother and includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and human trafficking,” Jay Williams, the department’s communications director, told CNN on Thursday. The media continues to ignore it.”
Some medical experts say otherwise. “Florida’s extreme abortion ban has created an unworkable legal situation that puts both patients and clinicians at risk,” the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights said in a report last month. Ta. The ban “results in preventable suffering” and “forces clinicians to depart from established standards of care and medical ethics,” the group said.
The health department’s threat was so appalling that CBS affiliate WINK removed the ad from its broadcasts, Florida Politics reported. Other stations have continued to air the ad, with some recently broadcasting it until Thursday evening, according to video search service TVEyes.
The stations have the backing of FCC Democratic Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who said earlier this month that “threats against broadcasters to air content inconsistent with the government’s views are dangerous. “This undermines the fundamental principle of freedom of speech.”
