GOP Rep. Kat Cammack on Thursday blamed Democrats, not Florida’s near-total abortion ban, for confusing doctors and nurses and making them hesitate to end her ectopic pregnancy.
“I had nurses and doctors showing me these advertisements, saying that they felt uncomfortable because they didn’t want to go to jail. They wanted to help me, but they felt like they couldn’t do anything,” the Florida congresswoman said in an interview with Fox News. “This is what women are experiencing because of the fearmongering around women’s health care. And it has to stop. The left absolutely played a role in making sure that doctors and women were scared to seek out the help that they needed.”
Cammack revealed to the Wall Street Journal this week that in May 2024, following the implementation of Florida’s six-week abortion ban, she required treatment for her ectopic pregnancy. Cammack said medical staff were hesitant to administer the medication to save her life, fearing legal consequences (such as losing their licenses), even though she was only five weeks pregnant and ectopic pregnancies are exempt from the law.
“I was five weeks pregnant, there was no heartbeat, and no ectopic pregnancy is viable,” Cammack told Fox News. “Unfortunately, women’s health care has been subject to the worst politic fearmongering that you can experience. And so, they had actually been receiving — these health care providers — had been receiving pro-abortion lobby ads, to the tune of millions of dollars being spent on these ads, that were threatening and scaring doctors away from helping women, saying that they could lose their license, they could go to jail.”
It took hours for doctors to finally relent and give her the methotrexate shot to prevent the ectopic pregnancy from rupturing, per Cammack, who opposes abortions but supports exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.
Months after her experience, Florida regulators issued guidance to clarify what they called “misinformation,” instructing doctors to intervene in cases like Cammack’s.
“I think that this is a wake-up call. My story should really bring forward the national conversation that’s long overdue about the lack of maternal health care,” the congresswoman said. “It’s important that we highlight that doctors aren’t to blame, women aren’t to blame. We need to get the politics out of women’s health care.”
Abortion rights advocates, however, blame Florida’s law. Molly Duane, a senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told WSJ that while the state’s abortion law doesn’t apply to ectopic pregnancies, doctors sometimes can’t tell where the embryo has implanted.
