To the editor:

Tell the truth, Gov. DeSantis — if you can force yourself to do it. You lie about lots of things but your lying about Amendment 4 really gets under my skin. I was a practicing OB/GYN physician for 28 years. Several of my patients were memorable for many reasons. The young woman who was abducted and raped by a stranger when she was a junior in high school comes clearly to my mind today. She was able to identify her rapist in a police line-up and he spent three years in prison. When he got out of prison he found her and abducted her again. He brutally beat and raped her daily for the four months that she was his captive. By the time she escaped she was nearly three months pregnant. This young woman had devoted parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who loved and supported her. No one in her family thought that she should not have an abortion.

Who do you think you are to impose your religious beliefs on another family? Where are those ‘family values” you tout? Only for your family? Oh. Yes. You are the one who “never backs down.”.And believes that might makes right — that your political power is unlimited. You apparently see yourself as one who has a God Given Right to bully legislators into restricting women’s rights. Your 6-week abortion ban took effect May 1, 2024. Thanks to you, some women have already come close to dying because physicians are fearful of going to jail if they treat a woman miscarrying. And thanks to the legislators who supported your 6-week ban. Sick.

Save your scare tactics. They will not work on the voters affected. Namely anyone capable of becoming pregnant or the relatives and friends who know and love them. You are lying when you say that “Amendment 4 is deceptive and dangerous, giving broad abortion approval rights to non-doctor clinical staff, allowing abortions for minors without parental consent and not only legalizing abortion during the first six months, but the entire pregnancy,” Voters in November will remember your lies and what you and your legislators did to try to control women.

Lynn A. Hagedorn, MD

Cape Coral