Doctors Agreed Her Baby Would Die 3 Months Before She Was Forced To Give Birth

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/deborah-dorbert-florida-abortion-amendment-4-1235141637/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/guB2F

DEBORAH DORBERT WAS five months pregnant in November 2022 when 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.

Here, in their own words, are Deborah and Lee Dorbert’s accounts of the devastating diagnosis, the excruciating months that followed, her traumatic birth, their son’s short life, and the months of grief that have followed his death.

*snip*