An abortion rights group in Florida is suing state officials for suppressing free speech, alleging in their lawsuit that the state unconstitutionally threatened television stations that were airing its ads in favor of a ballot initiative that would overturn Florida’s extreme abortion ban.
Florida currently restricts all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, granting only nominal exceptions in cases of rape, incest or when a person’s life is at risk — a standard that, in practice, is rarely allowed due to the ambiguous language of the statute and doctors’ fears over being prosecuted. The ballot initiative in question, sometimes referred to as Amendment 4, would expand abortion rights up to the point of fetal viability, generally regarded as 22-25 weeks of pregnancy. Regulation of abortion could occur afterward, but not at the expense of a pregnant person’s life or health.
Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF), the group organizing efforts to pass the amendment through a statewide vote, produced commercials that aired on dozens of stations across Florida at the start of this month. As a result, those stations received threatening letters from the Florida Department of Health, which dubiously alleged they were in violation of the state’s nuisance laws and that the ad was misleading. At least one station stopped airing the ad in response to the state’s letter.
On Wednesday, FPF filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the state is wrong in its assertions and that it is violating the group’s free speech rights by trying to limit where their ad can air.
FPF is seeking an injunction to stop Florida officials from “taking any further actions to coerce, threaten or intimate repercussions directly or indirectly to television stations, broadcasters or other parties” over airing political advertisements in favor of the abortion amendment.
The organization states in its lawsuit that:
The election is just three weeks away, and FPF 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. It is intolerable that FPF do so with the state dangling a sword of Damocles over anyone who would facilitate that core political expression — threatening broadcasters with criminal prosecution if they air viewpoints the state disagrees with, and silencing FPF’s speech in the process.
“The state is attempting to censor core political speech with which it disagrees,” the lawsuit further stipulates.
Officials within the administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis have taken several actions over the course of the past several months to block voters from having the opportunity to vote on the amendment proposal. The state has also tried to punish FPF and other abortion rights organizers, including by targeting supporters of the measure with visits from state police.
Just last week, the state announced it was fining FPF $328,000 over how it gathered signatures for the ballot measure, alleging that the group had forged signatures — a claim that FPF says is blatantly untrue.
“What we are seeing now is nothing more than dishonest distractions and desperate attempts to silence voters,” the group’s campaign director Lauren Brenzel said.
The measure faces difficult (though not impossible) odds of passage. Unlike other statewide abortion measures across the U.S. set to be voted on this November, Florida’s measure requires a supermajority vote — 60 percent approval from voters — in order to be enshrined in the state constitution. Recent polling shows that the race will be a tight one, and that, while a majority of residents will almost certainly approve of the ballot, it may fall short of the threshold required to become law and to overturn the six-week ban.
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