Florida abortion amendment could backfire on Ron DeSantis

Caroline, a woman in Tampa, Florida, was diagnosed with brain cancer when she was 20 weeks pregnant with her second child. Her first thought was would she ever be able to see her daughter again? “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," she says.

Caroline’s story is featured in an ad sponsored by Floridians Protecting Freedom's campaign to galvanize voters in Florida to vote “yes” on Amendment 4, Florida’s abortion initiative. If passed, the initiative would amend the Florida state constitution to prohibit government interference with the right to abortion before viability. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision, it allowed states to make their own laws regarding abortion.

Currently, Florida’s post-Dobbs abortion law makes it a felony to perform or actively participate in an abortion six weeks after gestation. Technically, the ban has exceptions for rape, incest and human trafficking up to 15 weeks, and to save a woman’s life or prevent “substantial and irreversible” impairment. However, as experts have pointed out to Salon — and previous reports have shown —  these exceptions are difficult to access. Likewise, women in Florida are still being denied care despite these so-called exceptions. The ad featuring the anecdote is part of Floridians Protecting Freedom's campaign strategy to connect with voters regardless of their political affiliation and elevate the issue of abortion as a nonpartisan one by sharing the personal stories of women like Caroline. 

“I fundamentally believe that the way that we win these conversations with independents and Republicans is by depoliticizing them,” Lauren Brenzel, campaign director of Yes on 4, said at a press conference recently. “We often talk about the fact that we're not running a bipartisan campaign, we're running a nonpartisan campaign because Democrats, independents and Republicans all don't want to see women in the state of Florida be harmed by these abortion bans.”

However, the ad has also been specifically targeted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration. Specifically, the Florida Department of Health (DOH) sent cease-and-desist letters to local TV stations that aired the ad, alleging it could invoke a “sanitary nuisance” law. Floridians Protecting Freedom filed a lawsuit accusing the state of using public resources and government authority to advance the state’s preferred agenda. Recently, a federal judge ordered DeSantis' administration to stop threatening to prosecute local TV stations, calling the threats "unconstitutional coercion.” The threats are part of an oppositional strategy that has ramped up in recent weeks, as reported by NBC News.

According to the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, 70 percent of Florida voters said they would vote “yes” on Amendment 4. Notably, ballot initiatives in Florida need 60 percent of voters to pass. 

“This is the highest threshold any campaign in the country needs to reach, and we are very confident here at The Fairness Project, that the campaign in Florida is doing all the right things to meet that high threshold and is on the path to victory,” Kelly Hall, The Fairness Project’s executive director, said in a press conference. “Florida has some of the most compelling stories from providers and patients up on the air right now in terms of ads and throughout their earned media and other communication, and they're just giving us a master class and how to elevate those stories that are so powerful in having voters see them.”

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Is it possible that abortion is a nonpartisan issue in Florida, and that the DeSantis administration’s attempts to intimidate voters will backfire on him? 

“I don't know if his intimidation tactics will backfire,” Keisha Mulfort, the senior communications strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida told Salon in a phone interview. “But I do want to make it clear that these intimidation tactics are unprecedented.”

Mulfort said the state of Florida hasn’t seen “election interference to this scale.” 

“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” Mulfort emphasized, saying that the legal consequences are unclear, but that women will continue to suffer because of Florida’s abortion law. “It is the women who may have to suffer through these pregnancies, who will continue to bleed out in public bathrooms, or the women like Deborah Dorbert, who have to give birth to their children who they know won't make it.” 

Mulfort was referring to a second television ad where a woman, Dorbert, shares her story about being denied an abortion in 2022, despite the fetus having a fatal anomaly. The doctor denied her request to terminate the pregnancy, citing the state’s then 15-week gestation limit on abortions — which was in effect before the six-week law went into effect in May 2024. She gave birth to her son in March 2023, who died shortly after birth. 

When asked about the ads and the federal judge’s order to the DeSantis administration to stop threatening to prosecute local TV stations, Jae Williams, the communications director of the Florida Department of Health, told Salon via email the ads are “unequivocally false and detrimental to public health in Florida.”

“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,” Williams said via email.

In a follow-up phone interview with Salon, Brenzel said the comments from the Department of Health are "false" and show "how much we can't trust the government in the state of Florida to be involved in these private medical decisions."

"The reality is, these so-called exceptions are incredibly limiting," Brenzel told Salon. "Pregnancy is complicated, and they're not doctors, so they can't even begin to know how to make those exceptions workable."

Doctors, she said, should be the ones to determine how to give their patients the best care.

Regardless, abortion is a “winning issue,” Brenzel, campaign director of Yes on 4, said. Indeed, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year suggested that the issue of abortion could be more influential in the 2024 election than other issues like the economy. 

“The amendment may bring out voters who are particularly concerned about the abortion issues,” Diana Mutz, Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication and Director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics, told Salon. “And it has the potential to change people if they normally vote Republican, to vote Democrat, both of those things are possible.”