Out and About

As a radiologist in Miami who practices fetal ultrasound, many of my patients are pregnant women. This makes Amendment 4 personal — as personal as the oath I took upon graduating medical school — to protect the life, dignity, and health of my patients. The hundreds of concerned physicians who have joined me in launching Florida Physicians Against Amendment 4 feel driven, as I do, to speak out against this proposal that would have devastating effects on our patients for generations to come. People who are counting on us to live up to our oaths. I feel that misunderstandings abound about what Amendment 4 would actually mean for our fellow Floridians. Contained within the text are meticulously crafted loopholes designed to throw the door wide open to unrestricted abortion under any and all circumstances. In short, I feel this proposal is deceptively dangerous. The language of the proposal is intentionally vague. For example, the amendment states that a woman’s “healthcare provider” can declare an abortion “necessary” at any point in pregnancy. Florida law defines a health provider as any person, institution, or organization that is licensed, certified, or authorized by law to provide healthcare services. This includes hospitals, physicians, healthcare centers, clinics and laboratories, which means not just OBGYNs and other trained physicians would be making life and death decisions for Florida women and girls. And yes, induced abortion is dangerous. The risk of a woman dying from abortion complications increases as the pregnancy progresses. In fact, her risk of dying increases by 38% each week (starting at 8 weeks of pregnancy), according to a study by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. There are even more dangers than this in Amendment 4. Let’s take a look at the actual text of the proposal: The words “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability,” eliminate and forbid any regulations that so much as inconvenience abortion providers. The amendment authors pretend to be moderate by adding the qualifier “before viability,” yet it purposefully leaves this term vague and undefined. Does it prohibit limitations on abortion before 20 weeks? 24 weeks? 26 weeks? It purposefully doesn’t say, leaving the question to be determined by an undefined “health care provider.” Then comes the biggest loophole: “…or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” This isn’t only vague because of the wide-open definition of “healthcare provider.” It also fails to specify the term “health”, thus allowing any condition one could dream up to be used as justification, including anxiety or panic attacks or mental health issues. The second and last sentence of the amendment is an attempt to confuse and misdirect Florida voters: “This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.” The authors of the amendment clearly saw the polling showing that massive majorities oppose any effort to overturn parental consent for abortion, so they included this as a fig leaf to hide their true intentions. But read it again — it doesn’t preserve parental consent; it preserves parental notification. Parents will be, in theory, informed of their minor daughter’s abortion but will have zero right to stop it from happening. The passage of Amendment 4 would eliminate the rights of voters and legislators to make any changes to laws concerning abortion. Amendment 4 is bad for women, and bad for Florida. This is why I and hundreds of other Florida physicians are opposing this dangerous amendment, urging our patients and fellow Floridians to stand up, speak out and vote “no.” Grazie Pozo Christie is a board-certified radiologist and licensed physician who practices fetal ultrasound in the Miami area. She is a founding member of Florida Physicians Against Amendment 4. She also serves as a senior fellow at the Catholic Association.