The monstrous impact of abortion bans
By 
Somewhere Sam Alito is rubbing his hands with glee:
Milo Evan Dorbert drew his first and last breath on the evening of March 3. The unusual complications in his mother’s pregnancy tested the interpretation of Florida’s new abortion law.
Deborah Dorbert discovered she was pregnant in August. Her early appointments suggested the baby was thriving, and she looked forward to welcoming a fourth member to the family. It didn’t occur to her that fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a half-century constitutional right to abortion would affect them.
A routine ultrasound halfway through her pregnancy changed all that.
Deborah and her husband, Lee, learned in late November that their baby had Potter syndrome, a rare and lethal condition that plunged them into an unsettled legal landscape.
The state’s ban on abortionafter 15 weeks of gestationhas an exception for fatal fetal abnormalities. But as long as their baby’s heart kept beating, the Dorberts say, doctors would not honor their request to terminate the pregnancy. The doctors would not say how they reached their decision, but the new law carries severe penalties, including prison time, for medical practitioners who run afoul of it. The hospital system declined to discuss the case.
Instead, the Dorberts would have to wait for labor to be induced at 37 weeks.
It it is not true that Dobbs will return the US to the pre-Roe status quo ante. Between the increased willingness of the state to impose lengthy prison sentences in general and the ever-escalating radicalism of the anti-abortion movement specifically, it will be much worse. Even where exceptions to abortion bans exist on paper, doctors will be often unwilling to risk testing them. These horror stories will happen again and again.
But at least Dobbs will turn Republicans into social democrats who want to provide care for pregnant women and parents, right?
The mail brings reminders of the Dorberts’ new financial burdens, invoices for all the things they wish had never happened: $12,320 so far in medical costs — not including induction and delivery, $7,000for Milo’s cremation and funeral, and $500 for the keepsakes in memory of their son.
The bills keep coming. Deborah estimates that Lee’s health insurance will pick up about half of the medical costs, some of which will be offset by a GoFundMe appeal that one of her sisters set up.
The Dorberts have no idea how their grief will evolve, or if they will ever come to terms with losing control over the most painful decision of their lives.
The anti-abortion movement’s many critics continue to bat 1.000.