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    • DeSantis administration warns TV networks to remove ads about abortion, Amendment 4
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    DeSantis administration warns TV networks to remove ads about abortion, Amendment 4

    Kathleen William Posted on

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration has already tried to fight Amendment 4, a statewide measure that could enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. And now the administrator has amplified this disturbing trend.

    Florida's six-week abortion ban is one of the strictest in the country. The DeSantis administration recently had its election police investigate people who signed a petition to put Amendment 4 on the ballot. Then the government used taxpayer money to launch an anti-abortion website. The government also used federal funds to air Orwellian television ads declaring, “Florida cares about women and families.”

    Now the DeSantis administration appears to be trying to intimidate people who ran an ad promoting a “yes” vote on Amendment 4.

    “The doctors knew that if I didn't terminate my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, my life and my daughter would lose her mother,” a woman says in the ad titled “Caroline.”

    “Florida has now banned abortions even in cases like mine,” she says.

    Investigative journalist Jason Garcia published a letter from the Florida Department of Health's general counsel to the general manager of WFLA-TV, the NBC affiliate in the Tampa Bay area. The Oct. 3 letter argues that the ad makes a “categorically false” claim about abortion in Florida — and warns that the ad violates state law.

    “The advertising is not only false; it is dangerous,” the letter said. “Women facing pregnancy complications that pose a serious risk of death or significant or irreversible physical impairment can and should seek medical treatment in Florida.”

    In practice, Florida law was not so clear. Although the law provides exceptions for rape and incest in certain cases, the law has confused physicians and created a chilling effect among providers. The problem was so glaring that the DeSantis administration threatened doctors not Providing emergency care in these confusing scenarios that only arise because of the law introduced by the Republicans.

    In another letter Garcia posted online, lawyers for the group supporting Amendment 4 defended the ad as true and urged a Florida television station to continue airing it.

    The Florida Department of Health's letter “represents a blatant abuse of power and must be rejected,” the lawyers wrote.

    The DeSantis administration actually appears to be trying to hide the dangerous effects of Florida's abortion laws from the public.

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    Kathleen William
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