Judge slams Florida's effort to ban abortion, says 'It's the First Amendment, stupid' | Florida

The Florida Department of Health cannot block a television ad supporting a ballot measure protecting abortion rights, a federal judge ruled Thursday, after the department sent letters to local television stations asking them to stop airing the ad or face criminal consequences threaten.

“The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disapproved speech 'false,'” U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker wrote in his ruling. “To keep it simple for the state of Florida: It’s the First Amendment, stupid.”

Florida is one of 10 states that will vote on abortion-related ballot measures in November. If passed, Florida's measure would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and repeal the state's six-week ban on the procedure, which took effect in May.

Earlier this month, the Florida Department of Health sent cease-and-desist letters to television stations that were running an ad from Floridians Protecting Freedom, the campaign behind the measure. In the ad, a woman named Caroline talks about being diagnosed with cancer while pregnant.

“The doctors knew that if I didn't terminate my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life and my daughter would lose her mother,” Caroline says in the ad. “Florida has now banned abortions even in cases like mine.”

The letters said the claim that women in Florida cannot have life-saving abortions is “categorically false” because Florida's ban allows abortions in medical emergencies. “The fact is that these ads are clearly false and harmful to public health in Florida,” Jae Williams, communications director for the Florida Department of Health, said in an email late Thursday.

However, doctors across the country say abortion bans are worded so vaguely that they force them to deny people medically necessary abortions. A New York doctor recently said she 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.

In response to the letters, Floridians Protecting Freedom sued Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and John Wilson, the former general counsel of the state Department of Health. At least one television station stopped airing the ad, the coalition's lawsuit says.

On Thursday, Walker issued a preliminary injunction preventing Ladapo from taking further action against broadcasters or other media companies that may air Floridians Protecting Freedom ads.

“Of course, the Florida Surgeon General has the right to advocate his own position on a ballot measure,” Walker wrote. “But it would undermine the rule of law if the state could turn its own advocacy into the direct suppression of protected political expression.”

In recent weeks, Florida's government, led by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, has sent law enforcement officers to investigate people who signed a petition to put the measure on the ballot. and issued a report saying the measure came to the vote due to “a large number of forged signatures or fraudulent petitions.” Floridians Protecting Freedom has denied wrongdoing.

Anti-abortion activists have since filed a lawsuit seeking to remove the measure from the ballot or void votes cast in favor of it.