Are Florida Doctors Still Trustworthy? Amendment 4 Divides Physicians Down the Middle

A proposed amendment that would overturn Florida's six-week abortion ban and enshrine constitutional access to the procedure has drawn out and split one key demographic ahead of the election, leaving Floridians to wonder: who is telling the truth?

The two main players in the debate over the measure, called Amendment 4, are Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration and Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF), the group that put the referendum on the November ballot. In an attempt at some scientific ethos, both have recruited what was once thought to be the most trustworthy, nonpartisan group: doctors.

But what happens when each half of over a thousand Floridian doctors dragged into the conversation call each other liars?

"You are having dueling doctors expressing different opinions," Dr. Grazie Christie, a radiologist and co-founder of Florida Physicians Against Amendment 4, told The Floridian. "I think that this difference in the approach between the two sets of doctors is observable by voters: they can see that the ethical positions are on the side of voting no on Amendment 4, and the physicians who play a little fast and loose with the lives of unborn children—but also with the lives of the mothers—are to a political end.”

There's a lot of time and effort that goes into understanding the underlying legal and ethical intricacies of a constitutional amendment, Christie said, and that may be one of the reasons some OBGYNs are still supporting Amendment 4.

"That's a lot of information for baby doctors," she continued, stressing the "anti-democratic" nature of Amendment 4. "The other side has two sets of doctors in it: the misinformed and the unethical."

Christie’s group, founded the same week that Amendment 4 made it on the ballot, joined Gov. Ron DeSantis’ statewide campaign against the measure earlier this week, which he name-called everything from the common conservative accusation of "deceptive" and "dangerous" to clever turns of phrase like a "Pandora's Box for bad policies" and a "Blizzard of lies."

Some of the 700-plus doctors in the organization told horror stories of botched abortions resulting in women having perforated uteruses, with one doctor saying that she saw a woman's small bowel "hang from her vagina" after the procedure went wrong. They allege that abortions are dangerous, and would become even more so if Amendment 4 passes.

On the other side, Floridians Protecting Freedom and their 850 pro-choice doctors have painted the Amendment 4 battle as giving voters two options: keep Florida’s six-week abortion ban, or expand that to viability. 

"The overwhelming support from Florida’s medical community for Amendment 4 is in contrast to the State’s hand-picked, extremist provider voices, and sends a clear message: abortion care is healthcare," FPF's campaign, Yes on 4, said in a statement. They pointed to a Tuesday press call revealing that over 850 doctors statewide endorsed Amendment 4—all of whom signed a letter advocating for its passage.

"Today’s conversations with doctors across the state served as a powerful reminder of what’s at stake this November—because medical decisions should remain between a woman and her doctor and be free from government interference," the campaign added.

The two doctor sects' insult-hurling and insistence that their side is right throws their trustworthiness into sharp relief. Trust in physicians first eroded in 2020; the last time doctors’ politics became front-and-center news with COVID-19 vaccines.

Now, the abortion debate re-exhumes that wariness, when 92% of doctors supported vaccinations against the pandemic-inducing virus before concerns on the right, spearheaded by DeSantis in Florida, led to fears that a) the vaccine didn't work or the more sinister option of b) it causes serious health issues.

Though data on that front has varied, mistrust remains. The usage of all vaccines took a hit in the years following COVID, leading to a resurgence in Measles, an outdated disease. The Florida Surgeon General in January called for a halt in COVID vaccines, demonstrating the level of distrust in health institutions and doctors as a whole.

And now with abortion, it's become a doctor v. doctor battle.

DeSantis has been a vehement critic of the abortion amendment since its inception in May 2023, one month after he signed his priority six-week ban into law. After FPF collected nearly a million petition signatures to get the Amendment on the November ballot to protect the procedure until viability, DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody asked the state Supreme Court to block it from the ballot due to "vague" language.

When the Court refused on Apr. 1 of this year, DeSantis began to regularly slam the measure first for being vague, then for allowing abortion "on demand,” and now for allegedly allowing unlicensed providers to abort fetuses. Soon, the Agency for Health Care Administration put up a taxpayer-funded website advocating against the Amendment (drawing the ire of the left), and then the Department of Health sent out cease-and-desist letters to TV stations running a pro-Amendment 4 ad they claimed to be false.

But through all that, DeSantis never made campaign stops labeled as press conferences to blast the measure. Until Monday.

According to a new poll released before his campaign tour but after his administration's ads, DeSantis' full-frontal assault on Amendment 4 may be working. Support for the Amendment was at 69% in July; now, it's at the bare minimum needed to pass: 60%.

Once DeSantis' statewide tour is complete, will support sink beneath the threshold?

Stay tuned.