Caroline is featured in the Yes on 4 ad the Florida Department of Health threatened television stations to take down. (Photo courtesy of the Yes on 4 campaign)
Caroline, the Tampa woman featured in the pro-abortion ad the DeSantis administration tried to force off the air, found out about the state’s threats to broadcasters over the ad as she prepared to evacuate because of Hurricane Milton.
Although the Florida Department of Health threatened criminal charges against the television stations that aired the ad she appeared in, Caroline has received nothing but support from her community, she told reporters during a press conference organized by Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF) Friday morning.
“It stung a bit because it surprised me. I was receiving so much compassion and support initially until that cease-and-desist came,” said Caroline, who is choosing to go by her first name to protect her privacy. “I was also packing up my house to evacuate for Milton, so I didn’t have the time to really think about it. I just, you know, I had to put that to the side and safely remove my family from my house.
“But I’m surprised because my community, my neighborhood, it was all support and love,” she said.
In the ad, Caroline describes how she had to undergo an abortion two years ago when she found out she had brain cancer.
Florida’s abortion restrictions would have prevented her from getting an abortion had they been in place when she began chemotherapy, she says in the ad.
‘The hardest decision I have ever made’
U.S. judge blocks DeSantis admin’s threats to broadcasters over Amendment 4 ads
Mark Walker, chief U.S. district judge for the Northern District of Florida, on Thursday barred the Florida Department of Health from intimidating, threatening, or coercing broadcasters from airing any political speech from FPF, sponsor of the amendment that would undo the state’s six-week abortion ban.
Walker chastised the DeSantis administration in his ruling.
“To keep it simple for the state of Florida, it’s the First Amendment, stupid,” he wrote.
During the press conference, Caroline shared additional details about the cancer diagnosis that led to her abortion. At 18 weeks gestation, she started having trouble speaking, reading, and writing. The five-year survival rate for adults with glioblastoma, the kind of tumor Caroline has, is 27%, according to the American Brain Tumor Association.
“The best chance of survival would be with chemo and radiation, and all I wanted to do was leave the neuro ICU and go home to my almost two-year-old girl,” Caroline said. “It was the hardest decision that I have ever made in my life, but I chose to end my pregnancy and prepare for radiation that next day.”
The threat to broadcasters airing Caroline’s ad worked in at least one station in Fort Myers, which has since resumed airing the spot, said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Yes on 4, during the press conference.
Discourse surrounding the abortion ban’s exceptions
Deborah Dorbert shared her experience giving birth to a child with a fatal fetal abnormality during an Oct. 18, 2024 press conference from Floridians Protecting Freedom. (Photo courtesy of Yes on 4 campaign)
Deborah Dorbert, a Florida woman who at 23 weeks found out her baby didn’t have kidneys but had to carry the pregnancy to term, said her public advocacy for Amendment 4 had mostly garnered support from her community. She said she received two pieces of hate mail as well after speaking out about watching her baby suffocate for 94 minutes after birth while Florida’s 15-week abortion ban was in effect.
“I have yet to hear from any lawmakers on the abortion bans. No one has ever reached out to me, ever since I started speaking up,” Dorbert said about pushback to the “Caroline” ad from anti-abortion politicians who tout the exceptions in the state’s abortion restrictions. Even if they had contacted her, Dorbert said, she wouldn’t know how to respond to them.
The law provides exemptions for rape, incest, human trafficking, to protect the life of the pregnant person, and in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities. But doctors and hospitals have been reluctant to observe them in practice for fear of sanctions including criminal prosecution and loss of licenses to practice.
“The fact is these ads are unequivocally false and detrimental to public health in Florida,” wrote James Williams, the health department’s communications director, in an email to Florida Phoenix. “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.”
Other legal disputes surrounding the amendment
The road to pass Amendment 4 has grown increasingly complicated in the past weeks. Floridians Protecting Freedom faces a lawsuit from anti-abortion advocates asking a state trial court to remove the amendment from the ballot. The plaintiffs in that Orange County case are fighting the legitimacy of the signatures collected to get the question in front of voters.
Their complaint cites an Oct. 11 preliminary report from the Florida Department of State that accuses the sponsor of “widespread election fraud.”
Brenzel denied wrongdoing by the campaign and called the lawsuit a deeply troubling anti-democratic effort.
“This campaign has been run above-board and followed state law at every turn. What we are seeing now is nothing more than dishonest distractions and desperate attempts to silence voters,” she wrote in a press release.
Florida supervisors of election verified more than 997,000 petitions from Floridians Protecting Freedom, which needed to gather nearly 900,000 to land on the ballot.
The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration is also involved in the disputes between the governor and Floridians Protecting Freedom. In September, the agency published a webpage claiming Amendment 4 “threatens women’s safety.” The Florida Supreme Court and a state trial court in Tallahassee allowed the webpage to stay live.