Appeals Court Allows Doctors to Continue First Amendment Lawsuit Against Gov’t for Censorship of Dissenting COVID, Abortion ViewsThe Association of American Physicians and Surgeons sued on the doctors’ behalf and argued that “medical specialty certifiers” and the government conspired to punish the doctors for their views.
A lower court dismissed the AAPS lawsuit on standing grounds and with prejudice, meaning the AAPS could not refile. The appeals court modified the dismissal to “The doctors represented by the AAPS “spoke critically of positions taken by Dr. Anthony Fauci, lockdowns, mask mandates, Covid vaccination, and abortion,” resulting in an alleged “coordinated to censor and chill” their speech.
The medical certifiers “expressly threatened to strip certification from otherwise qualified physicians who express such views.”essential credential for physicians to practice,” the medical certifiers “exercise great power over physicians’ speech,” the appellate opinion notes. One medical certifier, for example, exercised that power by “sending letters to all certified physicians threatening to strip them of their invaluable certification” on July 7, 2022.warned doctors that eligibility to maintain certification would depend on the medical certifier’s “review reports of dissemination of misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19, reproductive health care, contraception, abortion.
“The letters . . . were,” the AAPS alleges, “sent nearly simultaneously and with similar terminology as ‘part of a broader campaign by the Biden Administration to advance its particular partisan agenda concerning Covid-19 and abortion.'”calling for “‘recommendations for how the Department can most effectively and appropriately address disinformation that poses a threat to the homeland.