A former Department of Health (DOH) attorney who sent a cease-and-desist letter threatening a television station for airing an advertisement about abortion rights claims it was not written by him, but by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attorney. did.
“I did not draft the letter or participate in any discussion regarding the letter prior to October 3, 2024,” John Wilson wrote, refusing to send further letters. He announced that he resigned from his position as DOH General Counsel on the same day. to the media. “Earlier in the day, I received a draft letter directly from Sam Elliott, Assistant Attorney General in the Governor’s Executive Office.”
Wilson said he was instructed to sign his name on the letter on behalf of the DOH.
Before he resigned, Wilson said he was directed by DeSantis’ lawyers to “enter into an agreement with outside counsel retained by the department to assist with enforcement proceedings pursuant to the October 3, 2024 letter.” .
Mr. DeSantis’ office did not immediately comment on Mr. Wilson’s allegations Monday.
Floridians for Freedom (FPF), a pro-Fourth Amendment political committee, sued Wilson and Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who is also the DOH secretary.
FPF voluntarily withdrew Wilson from the case on Monday after he filed an affidavit documenting the DeSantis administration’s involvement in writing the suspension.
A federal judge last week issued a temporary restraining order to block the state from threatening to criminally prosecute a TV station for running an ad about the Fourth Amendment right to abortion.
“To put it simply for the state of Florida, this is the First Amendment, idiot,” U.S. District Judge Mark Walker wrote in a 17-page order.
On Monday, DeSantis spoke at the Florida Physicians Against the Fourth Amendment rally in Miami, where he continued to attack abortion rights initiatives from the stage.
“We’ve never seen a situation like this with so much money coming from outside the state,” DeSantis said during the rally.
“But they have said nothing about what the amendment actually says. They are spending millions of dollars telling verifiable lies about Florida’s policies and laws. Why aren’t they talking about all the different things that would happen if there was an amendment to the state constitution?”
DeSantis and other Fourth Amendment opponents argue that the initiative is vaguely written to deregulate abortion care without oversight. DeSantis said the Fourth Amendment opens the door to publicly funded abortions and eliminates rules requiring parental consent for abortions.
However, the ballot question states, “This amendment does not alter Congress’s constitutional authority to require notification of a parent or guardian before a minor obtains an abortion.”
Mr. DeSantis also condemned the Fourth Amendment ad in the wake of the FPF lawsuit.
“Advertising is 100% on a deceptive path of telling lie after lie,” DeSantis said.
Others appealed to Christian values to reject the Fourth Amendment.
“We can’t go to church and pray like Christians and then turn around and vote like atheists,” Lt. Gov. Janet Nunez told the rally.
Meanwhile, FPF says in its lawsuit that the state escalated its attack on the Fourth Amendment by using public resources to advance the state’s anti-abortion stance and accuse pro-abortion advocates of being liars. He said there was.
The commercial at the center of the legal battle was about a Tampa woman who had an abortion because her terminal brain tumor required life-sustaining chemotherapy.
Florida’s six-week abortion ban allows for some exceptions, such as when victims of rape, incest, sex trafficking have documentation to prove it, or to save a woman’s life. . But the six-week ban also adds complexity and requirements for receiving medical treatment. Although abortions are allowed to save the mother’s life, FPF argues that under Florida’s ban, women with terminal cancer could not have abortions because their lives cannot technically be saved. .
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