Ron DeSantis wanted to dodge a debate question about a six-week federal abortion ban. So the Florida governor pulled out a personal story, one that had recently become part of his pitch to voters on the need for greater regulation of abortion rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a lady in Florida named Penny,\u201d he said. \u201cShe survived multiple abortion attempts. She was left discarded in a pan. Fortunately, her grandmother saved her and brought her to a different hospital.\u201d He then pivoted to attack Democrats for their abortion \u201cextremism.\u201d<\/p>\n
The jarring anecdote caught the attention of viewers on social media, who speculated that Mr. DeSantis was fabricating the story.<\/p>\n
But Penny does exist. Mr. DeSantis\u2019s campaign says the governor has met her. She is Miriam Hopper, who goes by Penny and is an anti-abortion activist who lives in Florida and calls herself an \u201cabortion survivor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The details of Ms. Hopper\u2019s birth in 1955 are impossible to verify. But at least one prominent obstetrician noted that medical advances and practices had changed so dramatically in the nearly seven decades since then that her story had little relevance for the current debate about abortion rights and policy. At the time of her birth, abortion was illegal. Even an attempted abortion could have resulted in fines and imprisonment for a provider.<\/p>\n
Ms. Hopper did not return a call for comment this week. But she told her story in an online video posted by Protect Life Michigan, an anti-abortion advocacy group. The video, part of a broader campaign, was posted in September 2022 amid a campaign against a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in Michigan\u2019s Constitution. So-called abortion survivors have been a staple of the anti-abortion movement for years, frequently appearing in campaign ads and testifying on Capitol Hill in favor of federal abortion bans.<\/p>\n
According to Ms. Hopper, her mother sought medical care at a clinic in central Florida in 1955 because of bleeding and other complications. She was 23 weeks pregnant, right at the outer edge of when a fetus is considered able to survive outside the womb. The doctor who examined Ms. Hopper\u2019s mother said he could not hear a heartbeat. He induced labor, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do not want this baby to live \u2014 if it lives, it will be a burden on you all of your life,\u201d Ms. Hopper says the doctor told her parents before instructing a nurse to discard the baby \u2014 \u201cdead or alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms. Hopper said she had weighed one pound 11 ounces at her birth. The nurse \u201cplaced me in a bedpan on the back porch of the clinic,\u201d she said. When her grandmother and aunt arrived, they found Ms. Hopper. Her grandmother called the police. A nurse helped take Ms. Hopper to a hospital in Lakeland, Fla., where she survived several bouts of pneumonia.<\/p>\n
Ms. Hopper\u2019s mother, aunt, father and grandmother have died. It does not appear that the incident was covered in news reports.<\/p>\n
After an extended stay, Ms. Hopper went home and had a \u201cgreat life.\u201d She married her high school sweetheart, had two children of her own and has seven grandchildren. \u201cLife has value, and all lives matter,\u201d she said, at the end of the video.<\/p>\n
In a 2013 interview with the Florida radio station WFSU, conducted in the middle of a statehouse debate over new abortion restrictions, Ms. Hopper said that her story was based on what she had been told by her family. She said that her father, raised during the Great Depression, did not want another child and that she suspected a botched abortion had sent her mother to the hospital with the complications.<\/p>\n
Diane Horvath, an obstetrician and gynecologist who performs abortions until 34 weeks at a clinic in Maryland, said it was difficult to parse Ms. Hopper\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of parts of this story that don\u2019t make sense to me,\u201d she said, noting that 68 years ago, physicians had lacked the current-day technologies to keep very premature babies alive.<\/p>\n
In the 1950s, death was \u201cvirtually ensured\u201d when an infant was delivered at or before 24 weeks of gestation, according to a report published in 2017 by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.<\/p>\n
By contrast, a study conducted last year by a team of neonatologists found that nearly 56 percent of infants who are born at 23 weeks survive \u2014 if they receive aggressive treatment in a neonatal intensive care unit.<\/p>\n
Even if Ms. Hopper\u2019s story is accurate, it\u2019s not particularly germane to a discussion of current abortion practices or regulations, Dr. Horvath said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t represent the reality of medical practice at this moment,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not really relevant to what we should be talking about when we talk about access to abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fewer than 1 percent of abortions occur after 21 weeks\u2019 gestation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Such procedures are generally difficult to receive, with only a limited number of facilities offering them.<\/p>\n
The Republican presidential primary debate wasn\u2019t the first time Mr. DeSantis had told a version of this story. He debuted the narrative last weekend at a town hall in Nashua, N.H., amid a shift in his messaging that was meant to evoke a more personal touch.<\/p>\n
The moment came in response to a question from a voter who described himself as a \u201ctraditional Catholic\u201d and asked Mr. DeSantis, who has signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida and has tried to dodge questions on whether he supports a similar ban nationwide, how he would \u201cprotect the life of the unborn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. DeSantis said he had met \u201cPenny\u201d in person in central Florida, and then launching into a similar version of the story he told on Wednesday night, including the details about Ms. Hopper\u2019s grandmother and the pan, and trying to paint Democrats as the extremists on abortion<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, that\u2019s a very callous thing to happen,\u201d Mr. DeSantis said. Most Democratic officeholders say the government should not legislate such decisions and should leave them to a woman and her doctor.<\/p>\n
Ryan Tyson, a top DeSantis campaign adviser, said the governor was making an effort to talk more about the people he had encountered on the trail. His campaign did not provide details about the circumstances of his meeting with Ms. Hopper.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s out there \u2014 he\u2019s meeting people,\u201d Mr. Tyson said in an interview after the debate. \u201cHe\u2019s hearing their stories as he gets across the country. And I think that\u2019s why you saw he had a moment there, because it does take a toll on you.\u201d<\/p>\n