For weeks, Floridians have been unable to turn on their televisions without seeing a “Vote No on 4” ad featuring Dr. Grazie Christie.  Christie claims under Amendment 4, abortions will be the only medical procedure for which minors do not need parental consent.  (I will get to that later.)  Yesterday there was a new ad featuring Dr. Steven Christie, who on August 24, 2024, was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis to the Florida Board of Medicine. Either the surname “Christie” is the Sunshine State’s equivalent of Smith or this must be more than coincidence. One click on the Google machine was all it took to confirm the obvious.

The fact that Dr/Mr. Christie is a paid employee of the State of Florida and the ad in which he appears is funded by the Florida Department of Health with taxpayer dollars is a topic for another day.  Today, the focus is on Grazie Christie.  She is identified in the ad as “a physician.”  And from the way she talks about the nuances of reproductive health. one might think she has years of experience as an OB/GYN.  I was skeptical and again proven correct when the first hit when you Google her name is her profile on the “The Catholic Association” website.  After telling us about hosting a nationally syndicated radio show, her guest columns in a range of newspapers and magazines, representing American Catholics at a Vatican Synod, and her awards including “the Best Regular Column on Family Life from the Catholic Press Association, we finally learn, “She practices Radiology in the Miami area.”

In other words, her medical experience probably does not include being the primary physician for any woman who is dealing with a pregnancy or issues of reproductive health.  Do not get me wrong.  Dr/Mrs. Christie has every right as a devout Catholic to oppose Amendment 4.  What bothers me is that she is a devout Catholic who must have missed the Sunday school lesson about “bearing false witness.”  Remember her argument that minors do not need parental consent.  Here is the full text of the ballot initiative.

Limiting government interference with abortion.— Except as provided in Article X, Section 22, no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. (my emphasis)

Article X, Section 22, as revised in 1968, titled, “Parental notification of termination of a minor’s pregnancy,” reads as follows.

The Legislature shall not limit or deny the privacy right guaranteed to a minor under the United States Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.  Notwithstanding a minor’s right of privacy provided in Section 23 of Article I, the Legislature is authorized to require by general law for notification to a parent or guardian of a minor before the termination of the minor’s pregnancy.  The Legislature shall provide exceptions to such requirement for notification and shall create a process for judicial waiver of the notification. (again my emphasis)

So we know Grazie Christie has no problem spreading disinformation about the referendum on Florida’s six week abortion ban.  What kind of woman would do that?  Perhaps the best indication is a March 27, 2024 guest column in New York Magazine written by her daughter Grazie Sophia Christie.  It is titled,  “The Case for Marrying an Older Man: A woman’s life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help.” in which she justifies “her decision as a 20-year old junior at Harvard University to find a rich, older man and marry him.”

In the article, she describes marrying someone her own age as “two raw lumps of clay trying to mold one another and only sullying things worse.”  But it is the following paragraph that makes it quite clear why her mother has no problem with old, white men telling women what they can and cannot do.  Long-time readers know I often strive for satire, but Jonathan Swift could not have conjured this.

My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic. By opting out of partnership in my 20s, I granted myself a kind of compartmentalized, liberating selfishness none of my friends have managed.

Guess the oak and acorn adage is not limited to male trees.  My question, “Where is Margaret Atwood when we need her?”  I was looking forward to her next novel  The Handmaid’s Daughter.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP