Because “Caroline's diagnosis was terminal… an abortion would not have saved her life, only prolonging it. Florida law would not allow an abortion in this case because the abortion would not have saved her life.”[d] the pregnant woman's life “only prolonged her life,” the group said.
Judge: The state must respond with its own speech
According to Walker's ruling, the government cannot censor the ad by claiming it is false:
Plaintiff's argument is correct. While Defendant Ladapo refuses to even agree to this simple fact, Plaintiff's political ad consists of political statements – statements that are at the heart of the First Amendment. And just this year, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the fundamental principle that the government cannot do indirectly what it cannot do directly by threatening third parties with legal sanctions to censor speech it does not approve of. The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech by simply declaring that the unfavorable statements are “false.”
State officials must show that their actions “were tailored solely to serve a compelling government interest,” Walker wrote. A “somewhat tailor-made solution” in this case would be adversarial, not censorship, he wrote.
“For all these reasons, plaintiff has demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits,” the ruling said. Walker wrote that a ruling in favor of the state would open the door to more censorship:
In this case, the right to make political statements is at odds with the state's alleged interest in protecting the health and safety of Floridians from “false advertising.” It is no response to suggest that the Department of Health is merely using its traditional police powers to protect health and safety by prosecuting 'false advertising' – when the state can describe the discriminatory suppression of political expression of views as a 'sanitary nuisance', then any political position with which the state disagrees is fair game for censorship.
Walker then noted that Ladapo “has broad constitutional alternatives to limit the harm caused by an injunction in this case.” The state is already “conducting its own anti-Amendment 4 campaign to educate the public about its views on Florida's abortion laws and, at its discretion, to correct the facts regarding the pro-Amendment 4 speech,” wrote Walker. “The state can continue to combat what it believes is 'false advertising' by comparing the plaintiff's speech to its own.”
