Nonpartisan Health Company Spreads Lies About Abortion Rights Poll Measure

Florida’s company for well being care administration, a publicly funded and purportedly nonpartisan authorities group, is pushing misinformation in regards to the state’s abortion rights modification that shall be in entrance of voters in November.

Jason Weida, secretary for Florida’s Company for Health Care Administration (AHCA), tweeted Thursday afternoon to announce an improved “transparency page” to “combat the lies and disinformation surrounding Florida’s abortion laws.” The transparency web page on the federal government web site greets viewers with a big opening assertion that reads: “Florida is protecting life. Don’t let the fearmongers lie to you.” The web page alleges that present Florida regulation “protects women” whereas the pro-choice poll measure, Modification 4, “threatens women’s safety.”

Florida presently has a six-week abortion ban — some extent at which nearly all of folks don’t but know they’re pregnant — with exceptions for rape, incest, human trafficking and lifetime of the pregnant particular person, though life-saving care has been delayed or denied to Florida girls beneath the regulation. Modification 4 would restore abortion entry in Florida till fetal viability, or round 24 weeks, which is identical normal utilized in Roe v. Wade earlier than it was repealed in 2022.

The transparency web page claims that Florida’s six-week abortion ban is “designed to protect women from dangerous and unsanitary conditions” and units “reasonable and common-sense guardrails for medical professionals and their facilities.”

HuffPost spoke with almost a dozen such suppliers at services final month who say that the present regulation is untenable. Medical doctors are pressured to show away tons of of sufferers together with those that didn’t understand they had been pregnant earlier than the six-week mark. Suppliers additionally advised HuffPost they’ve needed to flip away sufferers with fetal abnormalities in needed pregnancies as a result of they couldn’t get approval for the process from two physicians, which is required by regulation. Many mentioned the imprecise wording of the regulation, coupled with legal punishments for docs, deters physicians from signing off on mandatory procedures.

The transparency web page makes a number of false claims, together with that Modification 4 would result in unregulated and unsafe abortions. AHCA additionally criticizes the modification for not together with a definition of “viability” — a time period used for many years on each state and federal ranges. When Florida Legal professional Basic Ashley Moody (R) argued in opposition to the modification throughout state Supreme Courtroom hearings by saying it ought to embody a definition of “viability,” conservative chief Justice Carlos Muñiz responded: “The people of Florida aren’t stupid … they can figure this out.”

The state company additionally included a blatant lie that Modification 4 eliminates parental consent for a minor who desires an abortion. In actual fact, the measure states that it “does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

“Our new transparency page serves to educate Floridians on the state’s current abortion law, and provide information on the impacts of a proposed policy change on the ballot in November,” a spokesperson for AHCA advised HuffPost by way of electronic mail.

“The law is the law however many in the media have not covered it correctly,” the spokesperson added, referencing a number of information articles in regards to the state’s six-week abortion ban. All the studies focus on how the six-week abortion ban is complicated for suppliers and sufferers, and that docs fear about their sufferers’ means to entry mandatory well being care. When HuffPost requested AHCA to develop on why these particular articles are problematic, the company didn’t instantly reply.

AHCA did refer HuffPost to the web site’s web page that exhibits the “myth vs fact” of the state’s six-week abortion ban, which repeats a number of the similar anti-abortion rhetoric used on the transparency web page.

Democrats and abortion rights advocates had been deeply upset by ACHA’s web site, with a number of accusing the state company of illegally campaigning for a political celebration.

“Using an official government agency … for political campaigning is a clear violation of F.S. 104.31,” tweeted state Senate Minority Chief Lauren E-book (D), including that she is wanting into taking authorized motion. “The voters of Florida deserve law-abiding leadership and to have their voices heard in November — free from government interference and propaganda.”

Floridians Defending Freedom, the pro-choice group behind Modification 4, declined to touch upon AHCA’s new transparency web page.

AHCA, which is tasked with implementing abortion bans and licensing clinics, has a historical past of anti-abortion ways regardless of its function as a nonpartisan state company. In recent times, the company has aligned itself with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, which has reworked Florida into some of the conservative anti-abortion states within the nation.

When DeSantis signed a 15-week abortion ban into regulation, previous to the six-week ban, Simone Marstiller, the pinnacle of AHCA on the time, spoke on the rally in assist of the restriction. Democrats described Marstiller’s presence as a stunning battle of curiosity on the time. Weida, the present head of ACHA, recurrently retweets Republicans together with DeSantis and anti-abortion teams together with Susan B. Anthony Professional-Life America.

Abortion clinics and lawmakers within the state advised HuffPost final month that clinics are pressured to report back to and depend on a state company that’s against their very existence, with some alleging that the company unfairly administers compliance fines to abortion clinics in hopes of shutting them down.