Doing Everything It Can

DeSantis’ Government Is Doing Everything It Can to Defeat an Abortion Rights Measure

Critics say the latest attacks break the law.

Julianne McShane

The Florida government seems to be doing everything it can—including potentially breaking the law—to prevent voters from approving an abortion rights ballot measure in November.

On Thursday, the state’s health department debuted a webpage spreading misinformation about Amendment 4, a ballot measure appearing in November seeking to override the state’s six-week abortion ban that the Florida Supreme Court approved in April. If it receives the required 60 percent of votes to pass, the amendment would guarantee the right to abortion before the point of so-called fetal viability, which is generally understood to be around 24 weeks gestation. But the state’s new webpage—which DeSantis has since defended as a “public service announcement”—attacks the initiative with a litany of false claims, including that it “threatens women’s safety,” would “eliminate parental consent” for minors seeking abortions, and could “lead to unregulated and unsafe abortions” by allowing people without healthcare expertise to perform the procedure.

Those claims, though, are easily debunked by taking a look at the actual text of the amendment, which explicitly states that a patient’s healthcare provider is responsible for determining when an abortion after viability is necessary to protect a patient’s health. It also says that passage of the amendment would not override the authority of the legislature to require that a minor’s parent or guardian is notified before they obtain an abortion.

But the state’s campaign against the amendment doesn’t stop there. On the same day of the site’s launch, the Tampa Bay Times reported that the Florida Department of State was looking for evidence of fraud in the more than 30,000 citizen signatures used to get the amendment on the November ballot. Two election supervisors told the paper that the move was “highly unusual” given that the signatures had already been approved by local supervisors. The Tampa Bay Times also reported Friday that police had visited the homes of at least two voters who had signed the petition supporting Amendment 4 seeking to verify their signatures.

The anti-abortion efforts are the latest in Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ ongoing fight to defeat Amendment 4 after launching a political spending committee aimed at doing just that in May. (It has raised $3.7 million to date.) Now abortion rights advocates say DeSantis’ government is hoping to scare voters into voting against the amendment. “To our knowledge, it is unprecedented for the State to expressly advocate against a citizen-led initiative,” Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said Thursday. “This kind of propaganda issued by the state, using taxpayer money and operating outside of the political process sets a dangerous precedent.”

On Friday, the Florida Democratic Party said in a statement that it had submitted a public records request seeking information on when the agency started working on the webpage and who was involved. “Ron [DeSantis] and his buddies know they’re losing, and they’re willing to do anything—including breaking the law—to rig the results in their favor,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a statement, adding that the party is also pursuing legal action to try to have the page taken down. State Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book also said her office was investigating legal action in response to the webpage.

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration did not respond to questions from Mother Jones about how much the web page cost to establish and maintain, who demanded its creation, why it includes false and misleading information, and how officials respond to criticism about the site. Instead, the agency provided the following statement: “Part of the Agency’s mission is to provide information and transparency to Floridians on the quality of care they receive. Our new transparency page serves to educate Floridians on the state’s current abortion laws and provide information on a proposed policy change that would impact care across the state.”

Now some have warned that the DeSantis administration’s use of government resources for political purposes could be illegal. Meanwhile, polling suggests the majority of Florida voters support the amendment.