Student newspaper refused abortion ad over concerns about obscure law
When the student newspaper at the University of Florida was asked last week to run an advertisement for mail-order abortion pills, which are legal to use in the state up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, the general manager quickly rejected it.
His reasoning: An all-but-forgotten law from 1868, still on the books in Florida, that would prohibit the publication of advertisements for abortion-inducing drugs.
It is the same law that prompted the newspaper, now called The Independent Florida Alligator, to break ties with the university in 1973. And the Alligator is the same publication where, over 50 years ago, students mounted a First Amendment challenge to the archaic ban on abortion-related advertising and editorial content — and won.
The law — F.S. 797.02 — was struck down in a unanimous decision by the Florida Supreme Court in 1972, according to news articles from that time, after the 21-year-old editor of the University of Florida student paper was charged with a first-degree misdemeanor under that same statute after publishing a list of abortion providers as an insert in the paper.
Ultimately, the case against the student was thrown out, the law invalidated and the student paper broke ties with the university following the administration’s attempt to prevent the students from challenging the law.
Now, The Independent Florida Alligator has come under some criticism for its decision to not run an ad about abortion services following a spate of new laws pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that critics say unlawfully limit discussion of certain topics on college campuses.
Although it was never officially repealed, the law lay dormant and forgotten following the Supreme Court’s decision, until it was referenced last week in the days before the state Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that will determine whether abortions after six weeks of pregnancy will be illegal in Florida.
In anticipation of Florida’s abortion hearings, Mayday Health, a
nonprofit that provides reproductive health educational materials, tried to place an ad in The Independent Florida Alligator.
“Abortion pills. Through the mail. Even at UF,” the ad stated. It included a QR code that connects to the organization’s website offering information on birth control, morning after pills and abortion. Learning the ad was rejected, president of Mayday Health, Jennifer Lincoln, took to social media to protest what she called a “free speech crisis.”
“We believe the students have the right to know that abortion pills can still be sent via mail, including in FL, and that people shouldn’t be intimidated by the attempt to chill free speech,” Lincoln said in a statement to the Miami Herald.
The general manager of The Independent Florida Alligator, Shaun O’Connor, told the Herald he made the decision not to run the ad based on a legal opinion that its publication could open the paper up for litigation under Florida statute 797.02. O’Connor said he was not aware that the Supreme Court had ruled the statute unconstitutional when he decided to reject the advertisement.
“This was a decision made relatively quickly. I am learning more now,” he said. O’Connor insisted his decision was not due to the content of the ad, and said he ran a Planned Parenthood campaign last year in the Alligator with no problems. He said he could not recall whether he had consulted attorneys in that case.
On Thursday, The Independent Florida Alligator published an editorial addressing the situation and echoing O’Connor’s position that the publication “could have faced legal repercussions if it ran this
advertisement” under the defunct century-old law.
“While we support fair reporting and pride ourselves on informing the public, an advertisement is not an article,” the students running the paper wrote. “The editorial board will personally be reaching out to interview all parties involved to address and explain what occurred.”
It’s not clear whether the students at the time of their editorial were aware of the Supreme Court decision prompted by their predecessors.
Lindsie Rank, a student press council attorney at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said although The Independent Florida Alligator has a right to decide what to publish, the decision should not be based on legal concerns about a law ruled to be unconstitutional.
“Student journalists shouldn’t have to think about oh God am I going to be charged?” Rank said. Aaron Sharockman, the chair of The Independent Florida Alligator board of directors, said the board was not consulted about the decision to reject the advertisement based on the law previously deemed unconstitutional.
“As a defender of the First Amendment I find that statute overly broad, overly restrictive, and infringing on the right for Florida to exercise the right to free speech and free press,” Sharockman said.
He said, based on the Supreme Court ruling, he hopes Mayday will consider resubmitting the advertisement. A decadesold battle
Just weeks into his stint as the 1971 editor of the University of Florida student paper, then called the Florida Alligator, 21-year-old Ron Sachs decided to use his platform to take a stand against the law banning the publication of information regarding abortions and abortion pills.
“We are questioning its constitutionality,” Ron Sachs was quoted saying by the Tampa Tribune in October 1971. To do that, Sachs decided to publish a list of abortion providers in the student paper. The university president forbade it. The publisher refused to print it. Undeterred, Sachs mimeographed the list of abortion service providers and stuffed them inside the paper as a pamphlet.
For him, it was a free speech issue, and not about women’s liberation, Sachs said in an interview at the time. Sachs was arrested for the stunt, but a judge declared the law unconstitutional and dismissed the charges. In 1972, the case went to the state Supreme Court which upheld the ruling of the lower court.
This past week felt like a trip down memory lane to Sachs.
“The pendulum has swung back to the right and it seems that on many issues we are going back to the future but not in a good way,” he told the Miami Herald.
Advertisements informing the public about abortion services have been commonplace in Florida in the past decades. Planned Parenthood has placed advertisements despite this statute, as have groups like Floridians for Reproductive Freedom. The Miami Herald has run ads about abortion, including one from Mayday Health, which tried to place the ad in The Florida Independent Alligator this week.
But the current political and social climate around abortion has led to fear and hesitancy from publishers, advocacy groups and healthcare providers.
“Limiting health care information from being advertised stokes shame and stops people from getting timely, high-quality care, and medically accurate information,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement.
At the same time, anti-abortion centers are using an increase in funding from the state of Florida to continue deceptive advertisements and tactics that attempt to encourage not getting an abortion.
“No one should live in fear of a 1868 law which was declared unconstitutional,” Sachs said.