Thea Thompson was about 18 weeks pregnant when an ultrasound technician told her she was having a girl in September. She and her husband were excited to welcome a second child to their family.

But the good news stopped there.

Thompson, 37, was undergoing a detailed ultrasound after previous genetic testing showed the fetus had a small risk of developing abnormalities. He could tell his medical team didn’t like what they saw.

“My husband and I are freaking out. He’s shaking my hand, we’re so panicked, we’re so stressed,” Thompson said.

Finally, her doctor told them: The fetus had fluid around its brain and holes in its heart. His umbilical cord had only two blood vessels instead of three, and his face was not developing properly.

“He’s basically saying, with all of this going on, it might not be that bad, but from what he could see on the ultrasound, with all of these things, the baby wasn’t going to survive,” Thompson said.

Thompson’s blood work and ultrasound showed that her fetus had a genetic defect that was likely fatal.

“We’re just devastated,” he said.

Thompson, like many other women since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the decision Roe v. wadeEven though she wanted to get pregnant, she would find herself struggling with the consequences of the state’s abortion bans. Now, she’s advocating for a ballot measure known as Amendment 4, which would enshrine abortion rights in Florida’s constitution.

Qualifying for an exception may come with risks

Florida’s six-week ban includes an exception for fatal fetal abnormalities in the first two trimesters. law requires Two physicians must certify in writing that “in reasonable medical judgment” the fetus will die at birth or “soon thereafter.”

She said Thompson and her doctor discussed the option, but because of legal concerns, he could not approve the abortion without giving her a more invasive genetic test to confirm the diagnosis.

They scheduled the procedure, known as amniocentesis, for the next day. It involves inserting a needle into the uterus to remove fluid from the uterus. Thompson’s doctor said it may take a week or two for results to come back, and it may be harder to find a place to get an abortion later in the pregnancy.

The next morning, Thompson woke up bleeding and cramping and went to the hospital, thinking she might have had a miscarriage.

“I took comfort in thinking, ‘Oh my God, I hope I’m having a miscarriage,’ so I don’t have to go through these procedures and I don’t have to make this decision,” Thompson said.

Medical staff at the hospital told her that she had not miscarried and was probably experiencing side effects from the ultrasound. They said they could not provide abortion care and suggested Thompson go to an amniocentesis appointment.

When she went to the clinic, a maternal fetal medicine specialist told her she was at higher risk for the procedure that would cause her waters to break early, a condition known as premature rupture of membranes, or PPROM. This can lead to serious infection, something Thompson said she saw firsthand in her nursing career.

He chose not to take the exam.

“I didn’t want to put myself through this, my own health, my husband, you know our child, it’s dangerous,” Thompson said.

Doctors say confusion and fear impact patient care

Instead, a few days later, Thompson and a family member traveled out of state to get an abortion at a hospital in the Northeast. Her husband was in St. Petersburg with their 2-year-old child while she was undergoing surgery. He remained in St. Petersburg.

“We couldn’t even grieve together, we had to be apart and it was terrible,” Thompson said.

defenders Amendment 4 They say Florida’s six-week abortion ban hurts women. In Florida, they require abortions to be allowed until the viability of the fetus, usually around the 24th week of pregnancy, or after that if the patient’s healthcare provider deems it necessary.

Family planning specialist Dr. who works at Planned Parenthood in Miami. Currently, patients with pregnancy complications are having difficulty accessing care because doctors are worried about violating the law, Chelsea Daniels said.

In a recent media interview with other doctors Daniels, who supported the change, shared her own encounter with a patient who was turned away by doctors even though ultrasound images showed she had an unviable pregnancy.

“The exclusion criteria are so narrow that it is not possible for them to handle every single case, so if a doctor is audited and the state appeals the decision, they can be fined, lose their license and be sent to jail,” Daniels said.

A. September report From a group called Physicians for Human Rights, it featured accounts from clinicians about difficulties deciding whether a serious abnormality should be considered “imminently fatal.”

Exceptions work for some people, state data shows. 386 abortions performed in Florida so far this year More than half were completed after the first trimester due to “fatal” or “serious” fetal abnormalities. But that’s still a lot less than the 757 Held in 2021The last full year that abortion was legal in the state until habitability.

The rate of babies dying from birth defects has been higher in Florida since abortion bans were first implemented in July 2022, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported. reported this week.

Governor Ron DeSantis

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Opponents of amendment say Florida law protects women

Gov. Ron DeSantis is advocating exceptions and warning that doctors who fail to treat a woman in distress could face malpractice penalties.

His administration used taxpayer resources to produce advertising and start a website People who say things like “Current Florida Law Protects Women, Amendment 4 Threatens Women’s Safety.”

DeSantis also spent the last weeks hosting press events Advocating against Amendment 4.

At a speech in Clearwater on Monday, he said supporters of the amendment pointed to extreme cases of women being denied care, including those occurring in other states. DeSantis argues that they are trying to distract voters from what he calls the “obscure” change.

“Florida, of course, has exceptions for things like the health of the mother, the life of the mother, incest, victims of human trafficking (smuggling), but again, that’s what they’re focused on, so they’re lying to you,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis urged voters to vote “no” on constitutional amendments “by default,” arguing that they are much more difficult to change in the future than the legislature’s actions.

Dr. on stage Members of the group Florida Doctors Against Amendment 4, including Ana Verdeja-Perez, also attended. The Plant City-based OB-GYN told viewers “not to fall for the scare tactics.”

“Our abortion laws protect the lives of vulnerable women,” she said.

“I’m angry now.”

But women like Thea Thompson say they shouldn’t have to risk their health to qualify for the care they need.

“I should have been able to make the decision I wanted to make at that moment,” he said of the September ultrasound. “I shouldn’t have even had to think about waiting and doing additional testing later. We were already miserable, we were already miserable. I didn’t want to drag it out any further.”

Thompson said post-abortion tests confirmed that the fetus had a fatal condition known as triploidy, in which the fetus has three copies of each chromosome in the cell instead of two. He asked WUSF not to publish where he went to get the procedure because he still has concerns, even though the state says abortion law penalties do not apply to pregnant women.

Although the treatment she received out of state was “the best care she could have asked for,” Thompson said traveling for a second-trimester abortion cost her family thousands of dollars and was emotionally traumatic.

“I look back now and see that I was angry,” Thompson said. “I’m really angry that I’ve been put in this situation because of the laws and the politicians who made decisions about my health.”

Thompson’s family is still trying to recover from their losses.

“It’s so fresh and raw, it’s hard to talk about and it’s scary to talk publicly, but I don’t want anyone else to go through what I went through and what all these women went through who came out publicly and shared. Thompson said their story must go on.”

Amendment 4 requires at least 60% of the votes to pass; That’s a higher threshold than other states that have passed ballot measures supporting abortion rights.

Early voting ends this weekend ahead of Election Day on Tuesday.

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