Lawyer resigns after DeSantis’ office pressured him to send threatening letter to TV stations over Amendment 4 ad

As Florida voters appear to support passing Amendment 4 to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution, the DeSantis administration has escalated its attempts to thwart the measure’s passage.

Letters threatening legal action against TV stations airing ads that promote Amendment 4 – the citizen-led abortion rights ballot initiative that seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution — were written by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ lawyers, according to John Wilson, the former general counsel for the Florida Department of Health.

In an affidavit released Monday, Wilson claims the governor’s lawyers directed him to send the cease-and-desist letters that threatened prosecution if the stations did not take down the ad under his name and on behalf of the department.  

“I did not draft the letters or participate in any discussions about the letters,” Wilson said in the affidavit filed in a lawsuit brought against the Department of by Floridians Protecting Freedom, the organization sponsoring the abortion rights measure. 

According to the lawsuit, at least one station stopped airing the ad after receiving the letter.

Wilson resigned on Oct. 10 rather than send out more threatening letters to other TV stations.

“A man is nothing without his conscience. It has become clear in recent days that I cannot join you on the road that lies before the agency,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

‘Disingenuous and dangerous’ 

The ad in question features “Caroline,” a Tampa woman who was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor in 2022. Twenty weeks pregnant at the time, Caroline made the difficult decision to obtain an abortion so that she could receive chemotherapy treatments to extend her life and allow her more time with her daughter and husband. 

After DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban went into effect in May, “Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine,” “Caroline” said in the ad.

The state claims that the ad is misleading, as Florida’s six-week ban allows for abortions in certain instances, including to save the life of the mother or averting irreversible physical impairment. But proponents of Amendment 4 say that uncertainty over the state’s law and the threat of criminal prosecution could endanger the lives of women like “Caroline.”

“If ‘Caroline’ had been diagnosed with that same tumor this year while pregnant, she wouldn’t have been able to get abortion care in our state, and for the Florida Department of Health to argue otherwise is disingenuous and dangerous,” Dr. Neha Sharma, a radiation oncologist in Miami, said in a written statement from The Committee to Protect Health Care, a national organization of doctors, health care professionals, and advocates.  

RELATED: Amendment 4 on campus: FAU’s mixed views on Florida’s abortion vote

On Thursday, Chief US District Judge Mark E. Walker of the Northern District of Florida sided with Floridians Protecting Freedom, saying the DeSantis administration’s threats to the TV stations amount to “unconstitutional coercion and viewpoint discrimination.” 

“To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the first amendment, stupid,” Judge Walker said. 

The order bars Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who oversees the health department, from intimidating local stations for airing the ad, and is valid through October 29.

DeSantis’ continued attacks

The threat of criminal prosecution against TV stations is not the first time the DeSantis administration has tried to thwart the passage of Amendment 4.

The Republican-majority state also launched a taxpayer-funded website run by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration that claims that Amendment 4 “threatens women’s safety,” even though it would merely restore the previous standard of Roe v. Wade, which required abortion to be legal until fetal viability, which is usually around 24 weeks (or when necessary after that to protect a patient’s health, as determined by their healthcare provider). 

And in September, Florida voters who signed the petition to place Amendment 4 on the ballot were visited at home by election police officers claiming to be investigating possible petition fraud by inspecting thousands of already-validated signatures. 

“This campaign has been run above board and followed state law at every turn,” Lauren Brenzel, campaign director of Yes for 4, said at the time in a statement to the Tampa Bay Times. “What we are seeing now is nothing more than dishonest distractions and desperate attempts to silence voters.”

Those attempts by the DeSantis administration have continued to escalate as Florida voters appear to be in favor of the passage of Amendment 4 in Nov. 

According to a survey released Monday from the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, 60% of those polled said they would vote for Amendment 4. The proposal needs 60% of the vote to pass. 

RELATED: DeSantis administration ramps up efforts to defeat Amendment 4 as poll shows widespread support for it