Gabrielle Russon
Attorney General Ashley Moody defended the health department’s cease and desist letters threatening TV stations with criminal prosecution for playing pro-Amendment 4 advertisements and argued the state did not violate the campaign’s freedom of speech.
“The First Amendment does not give (Floridian Protecting Freedom) FPF the right to spread objectively false information about the availability of medical treatment when doing so causes legally cognizable harm. These principles transcend the politics of the moment,” Moody wrote Tuesday in a new court filing in response to FPF’s federal lawsuit.
Moody also said, “The Department’s actions were appropriately tailored to its substantial interest.”
FPF, the political committee backing Amendment 4, sued last week, and a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order.
Both sides return to court on Oct. 29 for a preliminary injection.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attorneys drafted the cease and desist letters and directed health department attorney John Wilson to sign them, Wilson said in a court affidavit this week. Wilson resigned over protest shortly after and refused to send the media more letters.
The commercial the state tried to remove from the airwaves is about a Tampa woman named Caroline who had an abortion in 2022 during her second trimester after she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She underwent chemotherapy to extend her life, although it would not save her.
“In FPF’s commercial, a woman claims that ‘doctors knew if I did not end my pregnancy … I would lose my life’ and that ‘Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine,’” Moody wrote. “But that is simply not true. Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act expressly permits ending a pregnancy when doing so ‘is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life.’”
FPF has said it stands by the Caroline commercial and argued it accurately depicts one of the many challenges for women to get the health care they need under Florida’s abortion ban.
“FPF sponsored Amendment 4 precisely because current Florida law does not protect women and instead runs roughshod over their rights and imperils their health by substituting the government’s judgments for those of women and their health care providers,” the FPF said in the lawsuit.
However, Moody argued that the Caroline ad was inaccurate and that the FPF had no First Amendment rights to play it.
“There is no right, for instance, to air commercials falsely claiming that all of a city’s hospitals are closed or that 911 services are down. Yet Floridians Protecting Freedom claims that it has just such a right because the false information that it is spreading pertains to abortion, and an abortion referendum is taking place in Florida this November. Not so,” Moody wrote.
Moody also said the state hadn’t previously threatened earlier pro-Amendment 4 commercials until the Caroline ad.
According to FPF, one TV station, WINK-TV, a CBS affiliate in Fort Myers, yanked the ad and later resumed it.
Moody denied any link to WINK-TV refusing to play the ad and the state’s cease and desist letters.
“In the aftermath of these letters, it appears that only one television station — WINK-TV in Fort Myers — stopped airing FPF’s false claim about the availability of lifesaving medical services. It is unclear from the evidence in the record why this occurred,” Moody wrote.
Moody also argued that WINK-TV had been playing the Caroline ads even as FPF filed the lawsuit.
The health department sent the cease and desist letters on Oct. 4.
In court documents, the state said WINK-TV aired the Caroline ad four times on Oct. 4 and didn’t play it again until Oct. 8. Then, the Fort Myers station played it seven times on Oct. 14, four times on Oct. 16, and five times on Oct. 17, even though FPF sued on Oct. 16.
WINK-TV has not responded to a request for comment.
Moody also said the state hadn’t violated the FPF’s First Amendment rights because the political committee is still playing pro-Amendment 4 ads leading up to the Nov. 5 election.
17 comments
Phil Morton
October 23, 2024 at 4:31 am
Moody needs to send a cease and desist letter to whoever is running the Amendment 4 will undo parental consent ad. It’s a straight out lie.
Joe
October 23, 2024 at 10:40 am
All they know how to do is lie.
Rita Joseph
October 23, 2024 at 5:10 am
No honorable system of justice, whether State or Federal, can tolerate indefinitely the deliberate life-destroying premature eviction of a little daughter or son from her/his first home in her/his mother’s womb.
A referendum such as Amendment 4 can’t change our moral obligations
There can be no ballot results that can set aside the US Constitution’s founding principle that forbids the deliberate killing of our fellow human beings. Both science and reason tell us that our unborn children are fellow human beings, smaller than us but already belonging to our human family. Once conceived, each new human being is already one of us—the very same human being from conception to natural death—unique, lovable, always deserving of our protection.
The Founders recognized the “self-evident” truth that, for all human beings created equal, their right to life is the unalienable gift of “their Creator.”
Before the U.S. Constitution was written, it was first recognized in the Declaration of Independence that for every human being, the right to life is unalienable. This, the first and most fundamental right and obligation, goes on existing independent of any subsequent consensus measured in ballots or votes.
The Declaration’s right to Life was never predicated on a human being’s size or age or stage of growth. There are some principles that no State and no democratic vote may revoke — such as “the natural rights of the infant in the womb” affirmed by Founder James Wilson, way back in 1790 in his lectures, Of the Natural Rights of Individuals.
FLPatriot
October 23, 2024 at 9:50 am
Yup. Once it is born then it has the right granted by the constitution. Until then, It is the woman’s body and she can do as she sees fit. Having freedoms isn’t always pretty for everyone but the fact is…This is a woman’s right to govern her body and you can have an abortion or not but it is not your right to dictate what another living human can do with their body. Mind your own business.
Joe
October 23, 2024 at 10:42 am
Get back to us when the RepubliQan party is willing to support babies and children who have already been born, Rita. Your party prioritizes unborn fetal material – and guns! – over actual living humans.
A Day without MAGA
October 23, 2024 at 5:19 am
You are not an doctor,you probably have not pass basis biology,a zygote is not viable unto it is attached to the uterus Google Does Life Begin At Conception
A Day without Wingnuts
October 23, 2024 at 5:35 am
You should ignore people like this they have no legal or scientific basis for their post,but insane in the membrane rambling ,the declaration of Independence was declaration of the colonies freedom from Britain
Jojo
October 23, 2024 at 7:52 am
I’ve got a copy of the US Constitution if Ashley wants a copy.
Clearly she’s never read it
woke to the yolk
October 23, 2024 at 7:53 am
It’s OK with Ashtray to execute an adult and she’s the Attorney General not God. As for the Founding Fathers, they didn’t believe that women or enslaved negro humans had rights of self government. We are not going back! Abortion is a personal choice of a pregnant woman pure and simple. Big Brother has no business calling the shots over personal decisions related to whether or not to bear a child or not.
FLPatriot
October 23, 2024 at 9:48 am
This lady and the GOP are truly the enemy of our Democracy. They think it is their right to dictate what the people can or can not do. The GOP has become the party of BIG government. They want full control.
A Day without Republican Voters Intimidation
October 23, 2024 at 3:07 pm
Get the Fed involved,like in Texas,a Federal Judge shut down a voter intimidation investigation by State Attorney General Ken Paxson Google Ken Paxson Voter Intimidation
Joe
October 23, 2024 at 10:38 am
Oh look, a toadie defending her puppetmaster yet again!
UF College of Law’s RepubliQan pipeline continues to be an embarrassment to the entire state.
John C Couture
October 23, 2024 at 10:53 am
vote no on 4 florida
1. Eliminates all other laws ever written – even those to protect women
2. “Viability” is not defined. Could be up to the moment of birth or even beyond!
3. “Patient’s health” is not defined. Could be mental distress or just dont want it
4. “Healthcare Provider” not defined – could be anyone
5. Eliminates all previous parental consent laws and replaces with “notification” only.
Cheesy Floridian
October 23, 2024 at 12:45 pm
1. Eliminates all other laws ever written – even those to protect women – wrong, it does not eliminate every law like the 24 hr waiting period or the laws that make it to where a minor needs approval from a parent or guardian to receive an abortion
2. “Viability” is not defined. Could be up to the moment of birth or even beyond! – is defined in the Florida Statutes 390.011
3. “Patient’s health” is not defined. Could be mental distress or just dont want it – not for you to judge
4. “Healthcare Provider” not defined – no it will be someone who is licensed by the state to provide healthcare to people
5. Eliminates all previous parental consent laws and replaces with “notification” only. – wrong it will remove the 15 and 6 week bans that are in place.
Try again. Vote yes on 3 for freedom!
Cheesy Floridian
October 23, 2024 at 12:47 pm
I meant vote yes on 4 but also vote yes on 3
Just a Comment
October 23, 2024 at 12:45 pm
You’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t you?
Just a Comment
October 23, 2024 at 12:46 pm
Nevermind just reread it.