Florida threatens TV executive with jail time for airing ad in support of abortion rights

https://popular.info/p/florida-threatens-tv-executive-with


This November, Florida residents will decide whether to amend their state constitution to protect reproductive rights, overturning the state's near-total abortion ban after six weeks of pregnancy. If Amendment 4 passes, the following text would be added to the Florida Constitution: "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."

The primary group supporting Amendment 4, Floridians Protecting Freedom, is running television ads supporting its passage. One such ad is a first-personal narrative of a woman named Caroline who was diagnosed with brain cancer 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," Caroline says in the ad. "Florida has now banned abortion, even in cases like mine." Caroline urges voters to support Amendment 4 to "protect women like me."

On October 3, the Florida Department of Health sent a letter to Mark Higgins, the General Manager of WFLA, Tampa's NBC affiliate. The letter, sent by Florida Department of Health General Counsel John Wilson, claimed that airing the ad violates Florida law. Wilson cites Florida's law against "sanitary nuisance," which prohibits "the commission of any act… by which… the health and lives of individuals… may be endangered." Wilson argues that WFLA's decision to air the ad could "threaten or impair the health and lives of women." Wilson advised Higgins that, now that he has been notified that the ad is creating a "sanitary nuisance," WFLA must stop airing it within 24 hours. Failure to do so, Wilson writes, would be a crime punishable by up to 60 days in prison under Florida law. The letter was first reported by investigative reporter Jason Garcia.

Aaron Terr, Director of Public Advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a non-profit dedicated to preserving free speech, told Popular Information that the Florida Department of Health letter stretches "the meaning of sanitary nuisance beyond recognition." The statute deals with issues like "untreated or improperly treated human waste," "[t]he keeping of diseased animals," and the "causing of any condition capable of breeding flies, mosquitoes, or other arthropods capable of transmitting diseases." While the statute includes a catch-all for "any other condition determined to be a sanitary nuisance," there is no mention of political ads.

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