Department of Health sends cease and desist letter to TV station over abortion ad

Image via Florida Freedom Fund.

The Department of Health (DOH) has fired off a cease and desist letter to WCJB-TV and other stations for airing pro-Amendment 4 advertisements.

Abortion rights advocates say the move is the state’s latest abuse of power to try to defeat the upcoming ballot initiative.

The advertisement in question: A woman with brain cancer is shown in a 30-second ad describing how she found out she had a brain tumor while pregnant with her second child.

“The doctors knew that if I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby. I would lose my life. And my daughter would lose her mom. Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine. Amendment 4 is going to protect women like me. We have to vote ‘yes,’” the Tampa woman says in the ad.

DOH General Counsel John Wilson sent a letter last week to the Gainesville station General Manager Alan Chatman and Vice President of Gray Television Mike Jones warning about the potential of criminal charges, saying the ad contains false information.

“The advertisement is not only false; it is dangerous. Women faced with pregnancy complications posing a serious risk of death or substantial and irreversible physical impairment may and should seek medical treatment in Florida,” Wilson wrote.

“However, if they are led to believe that such treatment is unavailable under Florida law, such women could foreseeably travel out of state to seek emergency medical care, seek emergency medical care from unlicensed providers in Florida, or not seek emergency medical care at all.”

Wilson said DOH is “authorized to institute criminal proceedings in the county court” and that “keeping, or maintaining a nuisance injurious to health is a second-degree misdemeanor.”

“The Florida Department of Health has been notified that your company is disseminating a political advertisement claiming that current Florida law does not allow physicians to perform abortions necessary to preserve the lives and health of pregnant women,” Wilson added.

“While your company enjoys the right to broadcast political advertisements under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, section 4 of the Florida Constitution, that right does not include free rein to disseminate false advertisements which, if believed, would likely have a detrimental effect on the lives and health of pregnant women in Florida.”

Florida Politics reached out to the TV station, DOH and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Office but did not get immediate comment.

Reproductive freedom advocates have already accused the state of inappropriately getting involved and using taxpayer resources to fight the upcoming abortion rights initiative. The state won a court dispute which allowed it to keep up a state agency website attacking Amendment 4.

The Floridians Protecting Freedom political committee, which sponsored Amendment 4, sent the TV station an Oct. 4 letter demanding for the ad to keep running.

“This is not simply an instance where your station has received a baseless cease-and-desist letter in the context of a heated political campaign,” the campaign’s letter said. “Here, the Department is threatening the station with criminal prosecution if it does not cease running the Advertisement. This is not just an unfounded request, it is unconstitutional state action. The Letter is a textbook example of government coercion that violates the First Amendment.”

The campaign also defended the ad, saying it was accurate.

Under Florida’s current six-week abortion ban, women can get abortions later to save their lives — if they get two doctors in writing to say so.

“The Department may or may not honestly believe that its restrictions on reproductive healthcare are sufficient to protect women’s health. But that is not the lived experience of pregnant patients and doctors in states with abortion bans like Florida,” Amendment 4 said in the letter. “Pregnant patients who have cancer generally cannot undergo chemotherapy. And because the cancer is not immediately life threatening, an abortion is not permitted.”