ACLU threatens lawsuit over state website as doctors speak out in escalating abortion rights fight

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Florida chapter is filing a lawsuit within days to challenge a state-run website opposing Amendment 4.

The Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) website reads, “Florida is protecting life. Don’t let the fearmongers lie to you.” It lists reasons why Floridians should reject Amendment 4, which seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

“This website is filled with demonstrably false statements and so we’re challenging the misuse of taxpayer dollars to lie to voters about this amendment,” ACLU attorney Michelle Morton said during a press conference. “That’s not what the government is supposed to do.”

A Palm Beach attorney is also suing over the public health agency’s website.

The abortion rights initiative’s leaders also called Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attacks on the validity of its petition campaign a distraction to the real issue: fighting Florida’s six-week abortion ban.

“What couldn’t be more clear is extreme politicians are desperate to stop Amendment 4’s momentum,” said ACLU spokesperson Keisha Mulfort. “They know Floridians are against Florida’s cruel and extreme abortion ban, and yet they’re pulling every trick in their playbook.”

On Feb. 1, the state verified the nearly 1 million petitions collected in a grassroots effort to put abortion rights on the ballot following the end of Roe v. Wade, campaign organizers said.

Seven months later, DeSantis accused the campaign of having petitions collected on behalf of dead people and signatures that didn’t match voter registration.

Mulfort said they take any allegations of wrongdoing seriously, but she said DeSantis’ claims are politically motivated, as they come less than two months before the Nov. 5 General Election.

“We have operated with full transparency and integrity,” Mulfort said. “Understanding the significance of this ballot initiative, we hired a firm that has successfully managed several petition drives in Florida, including the 2016 medical marijuana amendment and the 2018 amendment restoring voting rights to Floridians with felony convictions. We also paid local election officials more than $1 million to ensure that they thoroughly reviewed and verified these signatures.”

The battle over reproductive freedom is intensifying and becoming a high-profile issue getting national coverage. It got a mention during this week’s presidential debate.

As representatives for the Amendment 4 campaign spoke with media Wednesday, a group of pro-life doctors and a state official attacked the initiative at a press conference in Orlando.

AHCA Secretary Jason Weida directed people to the state website that is the focus of ACLU’s forthcoming lawsuit.

“As the agency then is tasked with enforcing Florida’s abortion laws, I wanted to set the record straight to make sure that when people are thinking about these issues, they’re thinking about them clearly in facts and not with misinformation and lies,” Weida said.

Alongside him was Angeli Akey from Florida Physicians Against Amendment 4, who made her case against the initiative.

“If it passes, it would permanently cement abortion for any reason into our state’s constitution and supersede all existing state abortion related health and safety laws and regulations,” Akey said. “This amendment is bad for Florida. It’s bad for women, children and families.”

Akey practices in Gainesville and is Catholic. The Catholic Church is helping fund opposition to fight Amendment 4 and urges church members to vote it down.

One of the biggest concerns for physicians opposing Amendment 4 is that it is written too broadly. The ballot question says, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

“It may seem that the language might only allow abortions until viability, the truth is, there are broad exceptions for the undefined term patient’s health that allows abortions for practically any reason,” Akey said Wednesday. “It does not define what could be cited as reasons for an abortion, which means really anything could be cited as a reason for an abortion, even a head cold or an ankle sprain. The language is big and entirely misleading.”

But Morton, the ACLU attorney, argued that Amendment 4 uses the medical term “viability,” which is defined in state law. Viability, the period when an unborn child can survive outside the womb, is considered to be about 24 weeks.

“The amendment is clear that if an abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s health, the government can’t stop that from happening,” Morton said.

Republicans and Akey charge that Amendment 4 eliminates parental consent for a minor to get an abortion and deregulates abortion, meaning individuals other than doctors would be allowed to perform the medical procedure.

“This would essentially give a free pass to human traffickers, who could simply bring girls into an abortion clinic and force them to undergo these dangerous procedures, robbing that child of the parental protection,” Akey said.

Amendment 4 leaders say that claim is false. The initiative does not impact parental consent, Yes on 4 spokeswoman Lauren Brenzel said.

The ballot question states, “This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

State officials expect Amendment 4 to be litigated over if voters pass it with at least 60% support.

As far as deregulating the health care industry, Brenzel responded by saying, “We don’t want people who aren’t doctors trying to provide medical guidance. That’s the entire point of this initiative. … We’re talking about ending an extreme ban that’s putting women in medically dangerous situations, and we’re guiding the people of Florida to trust doctors over politicians with no medical degrees to tell them what medical care looks like.”

During the presidential debate, former President Donald Trump attacked Democrats over claims they support women getting abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy. Vice President Kamala Harris said it was insulting to assert that a woman would choose to abort her unborn child that far along without a valid medical reason. Brenzel did the same.

“We’re talking about women who have medically necessary abortions that are being denied, who are forced to give birth to children who die within their arms,” Brenzel said. “I would dare anyone who makes these kind of claims against women to sit down with somebody who has had to have an abortion later in pregnancy and tell her that what she did was elective. “

Amendment 4 launched an ad campaign this week calling Florida’s six-week abortion ban “extreme … with no real exceptions” for rape. The new ad also says many women don’t realize they are pregnant until after six weeks.

Republicans and Florida Physicians Against Amendment 4 said the ads were misleading, and dispute that Florida has what reproductive rights activists describe as a near total abortion ban.

“A Walgreens pregnancy test is 99 cents, and it is positive several days before a missed period, so it’s positive at around 3.5 weeks. So there is ample room for women to have elective abortions for any reason through the first six weeks of pregnancy,” said Grazie Pozo Christine, a radiologist from Miami who is a Senior Fellow for The Catholic Association.

“My objections to Amendment 4 are primarily as a physician because there is no reason to subject Floridian women and girls to a deregulated abortion regime when abortion is perfectly legal in Florida.”

Florida’s law allows exceptions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy for rape, incest and human trafficking victims if they provide proof of the crimes against them with a police report, restraining order or medical report. Two physicians can also say in writing that an abortion is necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life, another exemption written into state law.