Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) is blaming pro-choice advocates because doctors hesitated to treat her ectopic pregnancy in 2024 because of an anti-abortion law, reports Newsweek:
Representative Kat Cammack went to the emergency room in May 2024 and needed a shot of methotrexate to help expel her ectopic pregnancy.
Though doctors estimated that she was just five weeks pregnant, there was no heartbeat and her life was at risk, Cammack told the Wall Street Journal that staff had resisted giving her the drug because they were worried about losing their licenses or going to jail after Florida’s near-total abortion ban took effect. Hours later, doctors agreed to give her the drug, she told the newspaper…
She told the newspaper that she did not blame the Florida law for what she experienced. Rather, she lay the blame on messaging from abortion-rights advocates, which she said made hospital staff afraid of giving drugs even in circumstances where it was legal.
Molly Duane, senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Wall Street Journal that although Florida regulators say ectopic pregnancies are exempt from restrictions, the law does not define ectopic pregnancy and it can be difficult for doctors to tell where an embryo has implanted.
She said blaming medical professionals echoes the “playbook of antiabortion extremists that for decades have been blaming and villainizing doctors.”
Alison Haddock, the president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, told the Journal that it is common for doctors in states that have restriction access to abortion to be concerned about “whether their clinical judgment will stand should there be any prosecution.”
(Sources: Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Image: Fox Business/YouTube)