When I saw the tumor on the MRI, my first thought was am I going to be able to see my daughter again? The doctors knew if I did not in my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life and my daughter would lose her mom. [00:00:20] Florida has now banned abortion, even in cases like mine. Amendment four is going to protect women like me. We have to vote. Yes. You just heard a story and watched a political ad in regard to a ballot measure [00:00:35] in the state of Florida, meant to reverse some of the damage that's been done by the right wing politicians there who have effectively banned abortion. They've banned it past six weeks, which means it's an effective ban, considering the fact that most women do not know they're pregnant at six weeks. [00:00:51] Now, these Republicans, led by Governor Ron DeSantis, are trying to basically shut the woman you heard from up and any television station who shares her story is being threatened because they think that there are laws broken by this. [00:01:07] They're threatening criminal prosecution. I'm not even kidding. That's insane. So here's what's happening next month during the election, of course, Florida will vote on amendment four. The initiative would provide a constitutional right to abortion before viability or when necessary, to protect the patient's health, as determined [00:01:27] by the patient's healthcare provider. Essentially, they would reverse the damage that's been done in recent years and reinstate what the standard was under Roe v Wade. Now, currently, abortion is banned after six weeks in Florida, [00:01:43] with a few exceptions for the life of the mother or if the fetus is in danger, or if the woman some way somehow is able to prove or provide evidence that she became pregnant as the result of, you know, rape or incest or human trafficking. [00:02:01] Obviously, that is incredibly difficult to do in time to ensure that the abortion is done before 15 weeks. Now, the group Floridians Protecting Freedom is running ads, basically trying to get people to vote in favor of the amendment, [00:02:19] including the ad that you just saw at the beginning of the story and the woman featured in the video in the ad, her name is Caroline, and she's actually already a mother. But tragedy struck when she was 18 months along in her second pregnancy, she started noticing she [00:02:38] was having trouble with her speech. She didn't know what was going on. She goes to the doctor, they do an MRI, and they find that she has a mass, you know, in her brain, and it's impacting her ability to speak. Within a week, I got way worse. [00:02:55] The mass grew a lot, and by then I wasn't able to say what month it was, what day, who the president was, anything. And she was advised to undergo surgery, which revealed that she had a malignant tumor. Stage four glioma. [00:03:12] Now glioblastoma is the deadliest form of brain cancer. There is no cure, and treatment can only slow its progression. Less than 7% of patients survive five years after diagnosis, and that's according to the National Brain Tumor Society. [00:03:29] So she understood then that this diagnosis meant that she would have to terminate her pregnancy in order to get the treatment she needs for her cancer. She says, quote, I just wanted to see my little girl again. I wanted to keep my baby as well, but I [00:03:47] would have I wouldn't be able to do the chemo nor the radiation, and they wanted me to get on that as soon as possible because my tumor was very fast growing. And then by that time, Caroline was already 21 weeks along. [00:04:04] And since it was 2022. She was fortunate in that she was able to do a termination. The abortion was a two day process, absolutely devastating and emotionally devastating. Absolutely, absolutely the hardest decision I've ever made in my life, she says. [00:04:21] But she was able to terminate her pregnancy at a facility near her home. But under Florida's current abortion ban, she would not be able to do this. And so that is the reason why she decided to get involved in this campaign. That is why she was, you know, involved in the ad that we watched [00:04:38] at the very beginning of this story. And now DeSantis administration is literally threatening television stations that run Caroline's ad. The day after the ad began airing, DeSantis Department of Health dispatched a letter to Florida based television stations carrying the ad, [00:04:54] calling Caroline's assertions false. They're not false and dangerous, and the ad itself a sanitary nuisance while threatening the TV stations with criminal Penalties if the ad was not taken down within 24 hours. [00:05:11] Now, if you're wondering like what is sanitary nuisance mean? Well, it's it is a thing. It's just that that thing doesn't really apply to a political ad. So a sanitary nuisance is the commission of an act by which the health or life of an individual, [00:05:27] or the health or lives of individuals may be threatened or impaired, or by which a or by which directly or indirectly disease may be caused. Right. So obviously, like that wording and that citation makes absolutely no sense in the in the context of a political ad that DeSantis clearly just doesn't like. [00:05:46] And ironically, they argued that the ad puts the lives of Florida women in danger and is thus illegal. Their lawyers, John Wilson or their lawyer, John Wilson, claimed that Florida's ban would not prevent women like Caroline from obtaining an abortion. [00:06:05] It would just make the process, you know, like, a lot more difficult because that's what you want when someone has been diagnosed with a devastating brain cancer. That that has no cure, that can only be treated like they they want to hear [00:06:24] that getting the abortion they need is going to be a lot harder. Okay. Anyway, let me give you one statement and I want to hear what you think. John. He writes an abortion may be performed if two physicians certify in writing that that in reasonable medical judgment, [00:06:39] the termination of the pregnancy is necessary to save the pregnant woman's life or avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of the major bodily function of the pregnant woman other than a psychological condition. [00:06:55] But lawyers for amendment four claim that no, the way the law is written is incredibly vague, and it doesn't even fall within. Like her situation doesn't fall within Florida's exceptions. Caroline's diagnosis was terminal. [00:07:11] Practically, that means that an abortion would not have saved her life, only extended it, they write, arguing that Florida's ban does not include exceptions for such cases. Attaching a signed declaration for a doctor. A doctor attesting to the fact. [00:07:26] Okay, so John, I know that that was a long setup, but I wanted to give you as many details as I could jump in. Tell me what you think. There are like, five different insane things in that. Let's start with the last one. It wouldn't save her life. It would only extend. It would be a major moral distinction to make if humans were naturally immortal. [00:07:46] But we're not. Every time you save someone's life, it merely extends it. We're all headed out the exit sooner or later. Are you saying that we have no inherent right to extend our life a little bit? I'm sorry. - What the hell. - Is a woman? [00:08:01] - Not if you're a woman in Florida. - Definitely. What exactly is self-defense? Right. It's when you do something, perhaps use lethal harm to save your own life. But you haven't saved your own life. You've merely extended it by not dying in that particular act. Also, by the way, the fundamental insane thing here is, Ron [00:08:21] DeSantis is all this is obviously a lie. He just he thinks it's a powerful ad that highlights the reality of what he and the Republicans have done. And he knows it would be persuasive in a way that Republicans have never been persuasive on this topic. And so he wants to kill it because he doesn't want the ballot measure to pass, or at the very least, [00:08:37] he doesn't want a lot of people to be motivated to go out and vote on the ballot measure, because that potentially imperils other races in Florida as well. But the particular lie that they came up with, I think, is the most amazing lie that they could have. That in particular, how dare you spread [00:08:54] false and dangerous medical misinformation that might potentially harm other people. We Florida Republicans think you should have no right to say anything medically that could potentially harm other people, and we will never stand for it. That's literally the only principle they've had over the last four years. [00:09:12] You can tell people to put whatever you want in their body and it's fine. How dare they tell you to take it down now they're going to lock people up for running the ads. Yeah, I gotta say, this move by DeSantis is kind of hilarious, considering the fact that he's targeting a political ad, [00:09:30] which is the only type of advertising that is allowed to lie to you with absolutely no consequences. Like, we have laws and regulations against false advertising, with the exception of political ads. And in this case, this is the story of a specific woman, what she went through. [00:09:50] And I think that this angle that she's presenting, you know, her life story, by the way, incredibly brave to do it because this is a super personal thing, you know, to put it out there so publicly, especially in a red state, can be a scary thing to do. But what it does is it draws attention to why it is that so many people [00:10:09] view reproductive rights as healthcare, not just abortion. Like it's not just, oh, there's someone who's being super irresponsible and they're having unprotected sex and they're getting pregnant left and right, and they instead of doing birth control, they're just doing abortions [00:10:24] as their birth control. Like, no, it's way more complicated than that. And I think part of the problem is, you know, a lot of the people making these decisions are making the decisions for political purposes. They're doing it for themselves. They're not really doing it out of the best interests [00:10:41] of the people they're representing. And they just see it as, you know, a political issue that they can exploit for personal gain without even, by the way, diving into it and understanding it and thinking about what the ramifications [00:10:56] are for people who, you know, get devastating diagnoses like this. Now, attorneys also called the DeSantis administration's effort an unconstitutional state action that violates free speech, because obviously it does. [00:11:11] So the head of the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday also issued a statement calling the state's efforts dangerous and said TV stations are right to air. Political ads are rooted in the First Amendment. The television stations didn't play ball at all. [00:11:28] They continued airing the ads. They were not afraid because they apparently understand First Amendment rights and laws pertaining to false advertising in political ads better than the governor does. That's concerning. But I do want to give you a little bit of polling on this. So a New York Times Siena College poll asked if the 2024 election [00:11:47] were held today, would you vote yes or no on amendment four? And I'm happy to say that 46% say that they plan to vote yes. 38% say no. But this is where it's concerning. 16% of the survey responders said that [00:12:04] they don't know yet or refuse to answer. So there's a lot of leeway there where the results could go in a direction where we don't want it to go. Now, other polls over the last two months have shown significantly more support, though, so that's good news. Two polls showed 56% and 55% support. [00:12:23] Amendment four still short of what is needed for it to pass though. So in another poll at the end of July, after Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, 69% said that they would vote yes. And if that were the outcome, then they would secure a win. [00:12:42] We're just going to have to wait and see. But, I'm really rooting for you Floridians. Please do the right thing. This is, in my opinion, a human right. This is an incredibly intimate, personal decision that women should be able to make with the advice of their doctors. [00:12:59] This is a far more complicated issue than our politicians would have you believe. And so we'll wait and see what happens. Any final words, John? Yeah, I just. Look, obviously the polls, you know, different polls say different things, but the idea that you should be denied a right because 38% of your state [00:13:16] thinks you shouldn't have it, and in fact, you should die because you don't have it. Because 38% of the state doesn't think you should have. It is insane. That's not how a democracy is supposed to run. And by the way, it's there's a reason that they keep trying to block these ballot measures from being able to be voted on. [00:13:33] It's because they know that people don't actually agree with them, and they want to brute force the destruction of your rights. They don't want the people to actually decide. I think that's definitely part of it. But you also bring up a very good point about how this is the kind of issue that galvanizes voters, [00:13:49] typically more liberal voters, and it could negatively impact, various races and hurt the Republican Party in those races. So we'll see how it all plays out. But I'm really rooting for the people of Florida. Please, please make sure you vote. [00:14:05] And, I mean, there's no laws preventing me from saying this, so vote yes on amendment four. Thanks for watching. If you become a member, you get to watch all this ad free. Except for, of course, this ad still hit the join button below.