Gabrielle Russon
A second Senate panel has approved a bill amid sharp debate from critics that would allow wrongful death lawsuits to be filed when an unborn child dies.
The Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice approved SB 1284 with a vote of 5-3, a day after the House passed a similar bill.
Some criticism of the legislation even came from the Right, with one anti-abortion group arguing the measure doesn’t go far enough and should also apply to embryos created and stored outside a woman’s body.
Meanwhile, the medical community and the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued that the bill is dangerously overreaching as it is.
The bill does clarify that the unborn child’s own mother would not be subject to those wrongful death lawsuits, nor would health care providers giving “lawful medical care.”
The state, which is already facing a shortage of OBGYNs, will see medical providers reconsider caring for high-risk moms because they are scared of lawsuits if the bill is passed, argued Mark Delegal, a lobbyist representing The Doctors Company, the nation’s largest medical malpractice insurer.
“This bill will have an unintended consequence of not protecting the life of the unborn,” he said.
The ACLU of Florida argued under the bill that friends and family who help a loved one get an abortion could also get hit with lawsuits. Abusive partners seeking to gain control and power could be the ones filing the civil complaints, the ACLU said.
“These are not hypothetical situations. We’ve seen harassing litigation like this in Texas and Arizona,” said legislative director Kara Gross, who spoke out at the hearing.
Under the bill, it would not matter at what stage of pregnancy the fetus died since the bill would apply at “any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
“This would treat zygotes the same as actual human beings like you and me,” Gross said. “Treating fertilized eggs like human beings will have cascading impacts on in vitro fertilization, miscarriage management and cancer treatment for pregnant patients.”
But John Labriola, a lobbyist for Christian Family Coalition Florida, argued the bill acknowledges “the pre-born child does have value.”
Andrew Shirvell, Executive Director of the Florida Voice for the Unborn, went further, saying embryos in storage should also be covered and that the medical care exemption should be removed too.
“We can’t fully support it,” Shirvell said. “It is a life-affirming bill, but it does need to be amended.”
The Republican-led committee did not advance any such amendments.
After taking in the public comment, Democrat Sen. Tina Scott Polsky called the bill “just a bridge too far” and voted against it.
Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia argued that the bill fits in with the Legislature’s criminal laws.
“We have places in Florida Statute where we value the unborn child given enhanced penalties in criminal cases,” he said. “And I think what this does is just makes it consistent, saying that if there is value in criminal cases, there should be value in civil cases as well.”
