Not allowed abortion, US couple will see their baby die after delivery

The New Zealand health authority took the bid for emergency custody of the baby. (Representational image)

A couple from US's Florida will have to witness their baby's death following delivery in a few weeks due to a law that bans abortion after 15 weeks except under certain circumstances. The soon-to-be-delivered baby has been diagnosed with a fatal fetal abnormality known as Potter syndrome.

It is a rare condition related to a fetus’s development in the uterus. The syndrome is a result of abnormal kidney growth and function, which affects how much amniotic fluid surrounds the fetus during pregnancy.

It has been termed a “doubly lethal diagnosis” by The Guardian because babies with malfunctioning kidneys can’t remove toxins from their bodies and experience renal failure. Also, with the absence of amniotic fluid in the womb causes the baby to be born without the ability to breathe. There is no treatment for Potter syndrome.

One of the options that expecting parents are given in such cases is an abortion but because of a new Florida law that bans abortion after 15 weeks except under certain circumstances, the expecting mother Deborah Dorbert has become one of many women having difficulty in getting a necessary abortion procedure after the US Supreme Court overturned the rights granted by the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision, Washington Post reported.

“It makes me angry, for politicians to decide what’s best for my health,” Deborah Dorbert told the publication. “We would do anything to have this baby.”

“We have never really understood,” Lee Dorbert said. “We were told there was an exception … Obviously, (it’s) not enough of an exception in some cases.”

The couple, who have not learned the baby’s sex because either its legs were crossed or the umbilical cord was in the way during each scan, finally opted to provide palliative care to the infant after delivery.

“That’s been very important to us, understanding that we do have that control back at least in some of these decisions,” Lee Dorbert told the Washington Post.