For eight years, I have worked as an OB/GYN in Florida. During that time I have cared for thousands of patients, providing life-saving and life-affirming reproductive health services. A new bill in our state (HB 5/SB 146) would ban most abortions at 15 weeks of pregnancy and put the health, well-being and lives of many Floridians in jeopardy. This bill has no exceptions for rape or incest.

I recently cared for a patient who, for the sake of her privacy, I’ll call “Catherine.” Catherine and her husband were overjoyed to be pregnant for the first time. They had a list of potential names and were planning their nursery. During the 20th week — well beyond the arbitrary 15-week threshold imposed by this legislation — Catherine went in for her ultrasound, hoping to learn whether she was having a boy or girl. Instead, she was heartbroken to discover a grave fetal abnormality.

The high risk doctor wrote that while “Survival can be possible after delivery … the survival may be short and require additional intervention such as renal replacement therapy in the form of dialysis or transplant.” This means that even if her fetus were to survive through delivery, it would need dialysis and eventually a kidney transplant to have any chance for survival.

If this abortion ban were in effect, Catherine would all but certainly be denied the highly personal choice of whether to continue the pregnancy. Catherine and her family would face a future dominated by expensive tubes, tests, surgeries, medications and doctor’s appointments due to this serious, but non-fatal, diagnosis. Luckily she had the option to choose what she considered the most humane option for her pregnancy — having an abortion.

Catherine’s story may seem extreme, yet there are so many other patients with equally devastating non-fatal diagnoses. There are numerous other reasons why people seek abortions after 15 weeks, and they are every bit as valid as Catherine’s. This ban ignores all of them.

I cared for another patient recently who I’ll call “Lindsay.” Lindsay is a married mother of three young children, and she was violently abused by her husband. She felt very torn about bringing another baby into this environment, and visited an abortion health center when she was 12 weeks along. At that appointment she met with an abortion educator and ultimately left, still weighing her options.

Over the following weeks, the abuse got worse, as it often does for people experiencing intimate partner violence, and Lindsay feared for her life if she continued the pregnancy. At 17 weeks, she returned to the health center and had an abortion. She was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief when she received her abortion and lived another day. Studies show that those seeking abortion because of domestic violence are more likely to escape an abusive relationship when they obtain an abortion; Lindsay hopes to be part of this statistic.

If this law passes, those with economic means will still be able to obtain abortions, while those without resources will not. Data indicates that those who are denied abortions are less likely to escape poverty, meet the needs of their existing children, and leave an abusive relationship. They also have higher risks of severe pregnancy complications, in a country where maternal mortality, particularly for Black mothers, is among the highest of all developed countries.

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This ban will put the health and very survival of thousands of pregnant women, as well as transgender and non-binary people, at risk across our state. These people are our relatives, congregation members, neighbors and friends, and they deserve the right to make their own personal medical decisions.

As a member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists District XII’s Maternal Mortality Committee, and as a physician who strives to provide patients like Catherine and Lindsay with compassionate, ethical care, I’m calling on members of the Legislature to vote “no” on this harmful bill.

Dr. Rachel Rapkin is a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and serves on the Florida District’s Maternal Mortality Committee.