Dr. Ian Joseph Bishop, of Miami-Dade, says Florida’s 15-week abortion ban is causing he and his colleagues to choose between caring for pregnant women facing medical danger and abiding by a restrictive state law.
Deborah Dorber, of central Florida, says she found out her future baby’s kidneys had not developed, but she was already 23 weeks pregnant — far past Florida’s 15-week abortion ban limit.
Bishop and Dorber told their stories on Tuesday before a partisan committee of top Democratic members of Congress who held a hearing in Fort Lauderdale to talk about “the escalating threat to reproductive freedom.”
The hearing came the day after Florida’s Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and gave the green light to Florida voters to decide whether to protect abortion rights.
The congressional field hearing was led by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra also testified during the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing at the Broward County Government Center in Fort Lauderdale.
“I’m compelled by my conscience to provide abortion,” Dr. Bishop told the lawmakers. “And I have the training and skills to do so compassionately and well. But not being able to help a person in front of me as I hold their hand is devastating.”
Dorbert told the lawmakers that she carried her son, Milo, to term, only to watch him die within two hours of birth.
“I held him in my arms and he passed away 94 minutes later,” she told the committee members, adding that it was challenging emotionally to break the news to her young son that his brother had died.
READ MORE: Planned Parenthood centers in Florida prepare for a six-week abortion ban
“Today’s stories were profound and moving, and we all had a chance to understand and learn firsthand how people in this state and across the nation are suffering under anti-abortion policies,” said Wasserman Schultz, who co-chaired the hearing. “These voices represent the women that we all know. They are the people on the ground that must navigate bans, barriers, criminalization, persecution, and uncertainty. They are our neighbors, friends, colleagues, and fellow Americans.”
Wasserman Schultz slammed the Florida Supreme Court for "ripping away decades of abortion rights that were long recognized in our state Constitution."
"But they also did the bare minimum and observed the Florida Constitution that says when enough voters petition to amend our rights, we voters all get a say in preserving our own freedoms," she said. "Now we must go to the polls and demand our reproductive freedom this November.”
On Monday, the state Supreme Court energized abortion rights proponents with two rulings: one that paves the way for a six-week abortion ban and another that will give voters the opportunity to repeal the ban as they also cast their vote for president.
Despite Florida's reputation as a newly bonafide red state, Democrats have new hope that a ballot question seeking to preserve abortion rights will put the state back in play as the nation's largest presidential election swing state.
“This puts Florida in play,” Republican pollster Neil Newhouse told The Associated Press.
Newhouse said it’s not just the national abortion referendum, which has benefited Democrats in other states. It’s also the fact that Florida voters will be living with the strict newly implemented abortion restrictions for the months leading up to the November election. The six-week abortion ban goes into effect on May 1.
“Florida is now ground zero in the fight to protect a woman's freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions,” wrote Jeffries in a statement following Tuesday's hearing.
He slammed Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans, who control the Florida Legislature.
“An extreme group of individuals in this state, led by the current governor, are prepared by almost any means to jam their radical, right-wing ideology down the throats of the people of this state as part of an effort to try to impose a nationwide abortion ban.”
Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power, in a statement on Monday, said "we are very disappointed that a deceptively worded pro-abortion amendment is allowed to appear on Florida’s ballot in November."
"If passed, it will allow abortions up to 6 months of pregnancy and, thanks to a loophole, even to point of birth," he said. "Florida will become the most pro-abortion state in the southern U.S. That is NOT what Florida wants, and the Republican Party of Florida will fight to inform voters on the dangers of this amendment."
"It is of no surprise that [Democratic Party Chair] Nikki Fried and the Florida Democrats will be celebrating this radical pro-abortion amendment on the ballot because their extreme agenda knows no bounds," he added.
Dr. Cecilia Grande, a specialist in obstetrics & gynecology from Miami-Dade, pushed back against such claims during a press conference Monday after the high court's ruling.
In her 30 years of practicing medicine as an OB-GYN, she said, she never had patients make careless decisions about abortion. She said doctors don't perform abortions at the point of birth.
Grande said the six-week ban is nearly a total ban on the procedure, harming a doctor's ability to practice medicine.
"If someone presents with bleeding or with their ruptured membranes [after six weeks], it's gonna be difficult because you're going to have to send more people home," Grande said. "Sometimes ectopic pregnancies present after six weeks. This puts more pressure on patients who are underinsured and uninsured."
"It's a very bad deal for the women in Florida to have a six-week ban," she added.
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