In May 2024, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) suffered a near-fatal ectopic pregnancy, but was initially denied care by doctors wary of Florida’s newly implemented six-week abortion ban. Yet, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal this week, instead of criticizing the ban for putting her life at risk, Cammack pointed fingers at abortion advocates.
“It was absolute fearmongering at its worst,” said Cammack, who’s anti-abortion and co-chairs the House Pro-Life caucus. So she’s not blaming the ban for being dangerous and confusing; she’s blaming activists for pointing out that it’s dangerous and confusing. “There will be some comments like, ‘Well, thank God we have abortion services,’ even though what I went through wasn’t an abortion.” But part of the issue here is that her care was delayed because doctors weren’t clear about what might land them in jail.
Cammack was five weeks pregnant when she went to an unnamed Florida hospital, where she was told her embryo had implanted where her fallopian tube meets the uterus, resulting in a cornual ectopic pregnancy. “If this ruptures, it’ll kill you,” a doctor told her.
The fetus had no heartbeat, but since Florida’s six-week ban had just gone into effect, doctors were nervous about administering the shot of methotrexate she needed to end the pregnancy. (Surgery was ruled out because she might have lost her uterus.) The state’s ban—among the strictest in the country— has a very narrow exception to save the life of the mother, but it’s vague, and doctors or health care providers risk jail time or losing their license if they’re found in violation.
Cammack looked up the state law on her phone to show staff and also tried to contact Governor Ron DeSantis’ (R) office. Eventually, doctors agreed to give her the shot. Months later, Florida provided some clarification on the ban, stating that Cammack didn’t have an abortion, because they didn’t consider treating an ectopic pregnancy to be one. But they still didn’t define what constitutes an ectopic pregnancy.
Cammack said the experience opened her eyes to the privilege of…having a support network: “What happens to women who don’t have a car? What happens to the women who don’t have their doctor’s cellphone number?” she told WSJ. “Hell—do they have a doctor? What happens to them?” I’d add another question to her list: What happens to a woman who isn’t in a position of power and gets turned away by a hospital because she’s experiencing an ectopic pregnancy in a state with a strict but vague abortion ban?
“I would stand with any woman – Republican or Democrat – and fight for them to be able to get care in a situation where they are experiencing a miscarriage and an ectopic,” she added. That’s nice. How about starting with Florida?????
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