This is the present the American anti-abortion lobby wants

David French recently called the Trump/DeSantis abortion ban “well-drafted” and “one of the most reasonable pro-life laws in the nation.” Let’s check in on how things are going:

DEBORAH DORBERT WAS five months pregnant in November 2022 when she learned that her baby was not going to live. Late in the second trimester of her pregnancy, a scan revealed that his kidneys and lungs were failing to develop; a specialist diagnosed the baby with Potter syndrome, a condition that occurs when there is a lack of amniotic fluid in the uterus. He would not survive more than a few hours past birth, Deborah and her husband, Lee, were told. 

Her doctor advised that the safest option for Deborah would be to induce, and end the pregnancy as soon as possible. But because of restrictions that had taken effect in Florida that summer, a week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, that option was not available to her. Instead, Deborah was forced to carry her pregnancy to term: three and half more months, living with the knowledge that her child was going to die. 

Deborah and Lee are sharing their story in television ads supporting Amendment 4, a Florida ballot initiative that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state, including in cases like hers. 

Many horrifying details, for example:

Deborah: I continued to see my OB every two weeks, and then it got to a point where it was just getting so hard for me to go into the office, and she told me what symptoms to look out for and to call her immediately [if I experienced any]. It was right before Christmas that we got a call from [the maternal fetal medicine specialist’s] office. I was told that I could not get pre-term induced due to the law until my life was on the line. 

I was being forced to carry the baby to full-term, even though the baby had a life-threatening condition and would not survive outside the womb. From 23 weeks all the way to 37 weeks, I was forced to carry the baby.

Lee: I just felt angry. I knew I was gonna have to essentially stand by and watch her go through this, watch her be in pain, watch her suffer. I was mad.

And, needless to say, the state not only forced her to carry a non-viable pregnancy to term but stuck them will the bill:

Two weeks later, we finally had his funeral. We did just a little memorial ceremony. There’s a little place at the mausoleum where some of his ashes are, and some of the ashes we got made into different glass figurines.

I fell into a deep depression and eventually got diagnosed with PTSD, because it’s just a lot of trauma to try to work through and try to heal from, postpartum, you know? It just was a lot — I was grieving the loss of my child, but at the same time trying to recover from postpartum and birth.

We were left with excruciating hospital bills — not only labor and delivery, but also the [neonatal intensive care unit] bills because we had to use NICU for the baby. And there were a lot of bills left over that insurance didn’t cover. Obviously I eventually needed to see a psychologist, and my son needed to see a psychologist. Obviously insurance doesn’t cover psychology visits. 

All of the bills afterwards started to pile up — medical bills and then the funeral bills as well. 

Lee: It was close to $40,000.

French would claim that the law is just being misinterpreted, and he might say that the state should cover the costs incurred. The former is delusional (“why do all these Republican elected officials keep ‘misinterpreting’ the laws they drafted and/or signed”) and the second pure wishful thinking. Forcing women to carry nonviable pregnancies to term at substantial health risk and mental trauma and then making them pay for the privilege is what the American anti-abortion lobby is about, and why they wanted Roe v. Wade overruled. You can support that or not but that’s the alternative to reproductive freedom on the table.