Florida - Wednesday February 21, 2024: Up in Tallahassee today the House Judiciary Committee approved a controversial measure that would allow parents to file civil lawsuits seeking damages for the wrongful death of an “unborn child.”
House Bill 651 would also define an unborn child as “a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
Critics say that would add legal protections for an “unborn child”, putting abortion providers and people who help women obtain abortions at risk of being sued, not to mention other possible criminal charges.
State Representative Jenna Persons-Mulicka is the bill’s sponsor. “We’re talking about the experience of the parents who have suffered a real loss,” she said during debate adding, “we are saying they have the right to seek recovery.”
However the measure has drawn intense push-back from abortion-rights advocates, including Representative LaVon Bracy Davis, who argued that it goes too far, and would shrink the number of doctors willing to deliver babies in Florida.
The proposal, now goes to the full House.
A similar bill in the Florida Senate needs to clear one more committee before it could goes before the full Senate.
The bill is being consideration as the Florida Supreme Court weighs whether a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at protecting abortion rights meets legal requirements to go before voters in November.
The court has until April 1st to decide on that issue.