Posted Tuesday, December 2, 2025 5:12 pm

Christine Sexton (via Florida Phoenix)

Critics fear legislation to allow wrongful death lawsuits in the negligent demise of fetuses would open medical providers to lawsuits by vindictive romantic partners. (Photo by Getty Images)A House comittee on Tuesday voted 14-6 to pass a bill that allows wrongful death lawsuits for the loss of developing fetuses, with a leading proponent claiming the legislation should be a harbinger of things to come for the anti-abortion movement in Florida.

“I want to emphasize to this committee that this bill should be the beginning of a broader expansion of civil remedies afforded under Florida law to hold accountable those who continue to take the lives of unborn children illegally in our state,” founder and executive director of Florida Voice for the Unborn Andrew Shirvell told members of the House Judiciary Committee.

Shirvell claimed there would be upward of 55,000 abortions provided in Florida by the end of the year. “And I guarantee, I guarantee those official numbers contain many, many, abortions, possibly thousands, being performed illegally without justification past the six-week limitation that went into effect on May 1, 2024,” he said.

Shirvell didn’t say where his data came from. The Agency for Health Care Administration’s abortion data for calendar year 2025 show that, as of Oct. 31, 36,857 terminations had been reported by Florida physicians and hospitals.

The House Judiciary Committee was the last stop for HB 289, which already been approved by the House Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee last month over the objections of Equality Florida, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, and Florida Now, which are known to closely track reproductive rights issues.

House Subcommittee OKs fetal wrongful death bill; counterpart moving in Senate

“We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: By moving this bill forward, politicians are inviting irreparable harm to pregnant patients and deepening Florida’s maternal healthcare system crisis,” ACLU interim political director Kara Gross said in a statement.

“HB 289 is so far-reaching and overly broad that it allows any person who impregnates someone else — including an abusive ex-partner or rapist — to bring harassing litigation against individuals, doctors, hospitals, private businesses, and governmental entities for a loss of pregnancy from the moment of fertilization, by simply alleging that they were at fault,” she continued.

“This increased liability exposure will be devastating to any health care practitioner or hospital that treats pregnant patients, and is especially dangerous to OB/GYNs who specialize in high-risk pregnancies.”

But other groups that steer clear from abortion debates, such as the Florida Justice Reform Institute, which promotes legislation to reduce civil lawsuits against businesses, and the Doctor’s Co., the nation’s largest physician-owned medical malpractice carrier, also opposed the legislation.

Companion SB 164, by Fort Pierce Republican Sen. Erin Grall, faces an uphill battle in the Florida Senate, where the bill cleared its first committee by a 5-4 vote.

Damages for the death of an unborn child are not recoverable under the state’s wrongful death laws, which allow for recovery of medical or funeral bills and past and future pain and suffering. Damages may be recoverable for “negligent stillbirth” in a common-law proceeding. Those damages are limited to mental pain and anguish and medical expenses incurred incident to the pregnancy.

The House and Senate bills would allow parents to file wrongful death suits for unborn children, defined as a member of “the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.” Wrongful death suits allow damages for mental pain and loss of support, meaning jurors could determine the salary the fetus could have earned over its life as part of the damages to which parents could be entitled.

https://thebradentontimes.com/stories/fetal-wrongful-death-bill-ready-for-house-floor-vote,174926