A Florida judge has issued a temporary restraining order that stops the state from taking legal action against television stations that run pro-abortion ads.
Floridians Protecting Freedom, which is behind the state’s pro-abortion ballot initiative, filed a lawsuit against Florida surgeon general Joseph Ladapo and the former general counsel to the Florida Department of Health after the health department issued cease-and-desist letters to television stations broadcasting the left-wing group’s ads. The health department claimed the ads were “false” and “dangerous” to public health.
The pro-choice group argued the First Amendment protects such political advertising.
“The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false.’ ‘The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion,” district judge Mark E. Walker wrote on Thursday.
“To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid,” he added.
Walker said the organization presented “a substantial likelihood of proving an ongoing violation of its First Amendment rights through the threatened direct penalization of its political speech.”
Floridians Protecting Freedom remains the driving force behind the Amendment 4 Right to Abortion Initiative, which would allow “abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
Florida Department of Health spokesman Jae Williams took issue with the judge’s ruling. “The fact is, these ads are unequivocally false and detrimental to public health in Florida,” he told Fox News Digital. “The media continues to ignore the truth that Florida’s heartbeat protection law always protects the life of a mother and includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and human trafficking.”
Governor Ron DeSantis’ deputy press secretary Julia Friedland also denounced the ruling.
“The most overturned judge on the district court issued another order that excites the press, but these current stories all look past the core issue – the ads are unequivocally false and put the lives and health of pregnant women at risk,” she told Fox. “Florida’s heartbeat protection law always protects the life of a mother and includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest and human trafficking.”
The order will expire on October 29, less than a week before Election Day.