A federal judge has declined to continue granting a preliminary injunction prohibiting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration from pursuing legal action to stop a pro-abortion ad the state government calls “misinformation.”
District Judge Mark Waller said in his Nov. 6 order that though he supported the plaintiff’s former claim that it would face irreparable harm to its constitutional rights protecting its political speech leading up to the election, he could not grant the injunction now that it was over.
The issue centers on an organization called Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF) advocating for Amendment 4, a state ballot measure that would “limit government interference with abortion.”
In 2023, DeSantis signed the “Heartbeat Protection Act” that prohibits abortions after six weeks unless the woman has been a victim of rape, incest, human trafficking, or has a health condition.
The FPF put out a television ad titled “Caroline” that promoted Amendment 4. In the ad, a woman named Caroline claimed that after she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, doctors refused to give her treatment because she was 20 weeks pregnant, which prevented her from getting an abortion.
Amendment 4, which didn’t pass, would have allowed women to get an abortion after