Lawmakers are considering a bill to ban abortions that are being sought because a test result or diagnosis shows the baby may have a disability. The proposal triggers different issues from first amendment rights to offending people with disabilities.
The proposal would ban a physician from performing an abortion if that physician thinks the woman is seeking the abortion only because a medical test shows the baby may have a disability. Lawrence Walters is a civil rights and first amendment attorney based in Orlando. He says having free discussions with a doctor is covered under the umbrella of first amendment rights.
"Here, patients may be inhibited in what they can share with their doctor about the reasons for choosing an abortion or even discussing the genetic abnormality at all. So, essentially you have a bill that can chill the exercise of free speech rights under the first amendment by making the patient concerned about raising certain issues in the context of discussing an abortion," Walters says.
Tom Julin is a first amendment lawyer based in Miami. He agrees the bill could raise free speech issues.
"The woman is really told by this law if you get test results, and you are then motivated by those test results to have an abortion, we're not going to allow you to have the abortion. But if you don't look at the test results and you want to have the abortion, then that is going to be allowed," Julin says.
Julin says that puts the doctor in a precarious position as to whether the test results should be shared with the pregnant woman.
"You're interfering with those communications between the doctor and the patient, the woman who wants to know what is going to happen with this child," Julin says.
Nine states have adopted similar laws. Some of them have been challenged, and the cases are pending before federal courts. Julin says these types of measures seem to be baiting the U.S. Supreme Court into looking at Roe versus Wade again – the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion in the United States.
"Year after year, they propose barriers to accessing sexual reproductive healthcare such as abortion," Laura Goodhue with the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates says. "If the bill's sponsors are trying to address discrimination against people with disabilities—this is really not the way to go about it."
Disability Rights Florida's Olivia Babis says the way the bill defines disability is offensive. It lists conditions like physical disfigurement as a disability.
"What does that mean? Like, that isn't a protected status according to the Americans with Disabilities Act. We're talking about albinism, you know, that isn't necessarily a disability. A physical or mental disease, we don't even know what exactly that is meant by those terms," Babis says.
Babis says there are all kinds of disabilities, and not all are covered under the bill. She says people with disabilities face many problems, like high unemployment and waitlists for services they need, and the bill doesn't address any of those.
"If you want to show that you value the lives of people with disabilities, we need to make sure that child has the services that they need. That the parents have the support that they need in order to raise that child with a disability and to make sure that they have opportunities and they're able to thrive in their lives," Babis says.
Under the bill, A woman could still have what the bill refers to as a "disability abortion" if that procedure is necessary to save her life.
