The ultra-conservative drift of some US states is restricting abortion to the point of almost banning it completely. Florida, for example, prohibits abortion after the 15th week, although this April it approved a law that limits the interruption of pregnancy to the first six weeks of gestation. This prohibition causes dramatic situations such as that of Deborah Dorbert, a woman who was forced to give birth to her son without kidneys and for whom the doctors had guaranteed that she had no chance of living.
Dorbert, as reported by CNN, received the diagnosis at 24 weeks, when an ultrasound showed that the fetus had no kidneys and hardly any amniotic fluid.
The doctors confirmed not only that the baby would die, but that the pregnancy would be at risk due to a high probability of preeclampsia, a potentially fatal complication.
“He gasped a couple of times when I held him,” Dorbert, 33, told CNN. “I saw my son take his first breath, and I held him while he took his last breath.”
It was too late to terminate the pregnancy in Florida, which bans almost all abortions after 15 weeks. She only had two options left: leave the state to have an abortion or give birth to the baby and let it die in her arms. And neither she nor her husband had the resources to travel.
For the next 13 weeks, Dorbert suffered from severe anxiety and depression about carrying a baby who would die in her hands, and the process would seriously put her health at risk.
That state’s law allows abortions after 15 weeks if two doctors confirm in writing the diagnosis of a fatal fetal abnormality, but doctors in Florida and states with similar laws have been hesitant to terminate such pregnancies for fear someone would question whether the abnormality it’s really deadly. Penalties for breaking the law are severe: Doctors can go to prison and face hefty fines and legal fees.
