Her baby has a deadly diagnosis. Her Florida doctors refused an abortion.
In “Her baby has a deadly diagnosis. Her Florida doctors refused an abortion,” The Washington Post reports on the story of Deborah Dorbert, a Florida woman who was halfway through her planned second pregnancy when her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition called Potter syndrome. Knowing the fetus would not survive past birth, Dorbert wanted to terminate her pregnancy as soon as possible—but due to Florida’s new abortion law H.B. 5, which bans abortions after 15 weeks, she was forced to remain pregnant.
H.B. 5 allows exceptions in the case of fatal fetal abnormality, but Dorbert herself was unable to secure one. “We have never really understood,” said her partner Lee Dorbert. “We were told there was an exception… Obviously not enough of an exception in some cases.”
Challenging Florida’s Abortion Ban
The Center and its partners are challenging H.B. 5, Florida’s law banning abortion care after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The Center’s Autumn Katz, interim director of litigation, pointed out in the article that physicians are terrified by the combination of the narrow exception to Florida’s law and the harsh penalties for violating it. As a result, Katz said, they “are likely to err on the side of questioning whether the conditions are fully met.”
Dorbert’s primary-care physician said that as the pregnancy continues, the risks to her health will increase, with no additional benefit to the fetus.
“It makes me angry, for politicians to decide what’s best for my health,” Dorbert said. “We would do anything to have this baby.”
Read the article here:
- “Her baby has a deadly diagnosis. Her Florida doctors refused an abortion,” The Washington Post, 02.18.23
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