Florida Republican Representative Kat Cammack was widely criticized after opening up to reporter Tara Palmeri about having trouble accessing abortion for an ectopic pregnancy in Florida after she helped pass a six-week abortion ban in the state.
Cammack told the Wall Street Journal that she faced delays in receiving treatment for a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy shortly after Florida’s six-week abortion ban took effect in May 2025.
Cammack blamed those delays not on the law itself but on what she described as misleading messaging from abortion-rights advocates that had made healthcare workers fearful of legal repercussions, telling the Journal:
“It was absolute fearmongering at its worst. There will be some comments like, ‘Well, thank God we have abortion services,’ even though what I went through wasn’t an abortion.'"
She had an ectopic pregnancy. That’s why she needed an abortion, which she got (because it’s okay when it’s for me) but she’s complaining about the fact that fear of prosecution under HER law made pharmacies unwilling (edit: I should have said “hesitant”) to provide the necessary pills. It’s the fact that it wasn’t in her uterus that she’s using to claim it “wasn’t an abortion.”
She didn’t get it “because it’s okay when it’s for me”
She got it because it is a life-threatening condition that Florida’s anti-abortion laws do take into account, unlike some other states.
However, doctors are so afraid of the law she supported that before they act they are compelled to document as much as possible and test and test.
Additionally
If I were a physician I would almost always wait for the 2nd physician to sign off before allowing a Florida court judge me.
She got treatment exactly as prescribed by the law
https://abortiondefensenetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Florida.pdf
What I meant was not that she was allowed to get it, of course the law was written to allow a bare minimum of protection for the life of the mother. And I have edited because I should have said hesitant rather than unwilling. They did give her the pills.
My point was that she chose not to die for her beliefs, but instead carved out a nonsensical mental exception for herself by denying that the abortion was an abortion. When push came to shove, she chose to have her fetus (embryo? I bet she lied about it only being 5 weeks) killed instead of letting it die naturally and probably kill her in the process.
Which, by the way, is the only sane decision and yet it’s the one she denies.
Yeah, I got some bad news about that.
https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/a-review-of-exceptions-in-state-abortions-bans-implications-for-the-provision-of-abortion-services/
Basically 6 states (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Idaho, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) have no provision to protect the health of the pregnant person. They only have provisions to protect the life of the mother. The issue is it’s so poorly written in many states they have to wait until the mother is actively dying to act.
Ectopic pregnancies are deadly, eventually. They can stay in place for weeks without actually killing the woman. It’s well documented that in many states women have been told to wait in the parking lot until the condition became severe enough that it was life threatening.
I’m well aware. It’s so brutal that saying it’s barbaric is unfair to barbarians. Fortunately for her, Florida wasn’t on that list. In the terrible past, a woman could say “I’ll kill myself if I have to continue this pregnancy,” which would allow the doctor to act to save her life. In the more-terrible present, the draconian laws are written to prevent any such acts of humanity. The thumb is pushing so hard on the scale towards the “baby” rather than the woman (who has no value except as a mother) that the laws are indeed poorly written, on purpose.
She did a lot of work on this bill, and likely had a role in planning the exceptions. These poorly written exceptions that is.
The part that really highlighted it for me is she got to experience exactly what those actually mean practically. Of course instead of realizing this was her fault she blamed doctors for not understanding her poorly written law. Republicans can take no responsibility for their actions, its always someone else’s fault
Oh, okay. Thanks for clarifying!
Back in the day, your birth tally, as recorded for every childbearing woman, terminations were terminations. 3 miscarriages? 3 terminations. 3 abortions? 3 terminations. 2 miscarriages and one abortion? 3 terminations. That’s not political, that is the neutrality (ideally) of medicine.
Gravida: # of times pregnant Para: # of pregnancies that reached viable gestation, alive or not. Termination: # of losses previable
So this gal, if it was her only pregnancy, would be G1, P0, T1 by that system.
That’s when I was in school. I’m not in OB, but now they use GTPAL (you guys can look it up in total). I cannot find the year of the switch. But know older terminology may be referenced by some people.
The P is preterm. Births between 20-37wks, live or stillborn.
The A is abortion, and includes ALL losses before 20wks. Your body can self abort due to issues with the fetus. A lot of early miscarriages are like that, and, often happen on a toilet. GASP
By the newer GTPAL system, this gal would be (assuming this was her only pregnancy): G1, T0, P0, A1, L0
Note that A1 is Abortion: 1.
I feel no joy in this. For me, it simply is, but this gal will likely continue to see it as something else.
Yeah but all that sounds so complicated and it’s easier to just say it’s all the same and it’s all “murder”
Yeah. Take the D&C. The D is for dilation (of the cervix), so the doctor can see into the uterus and use instruments. The C stands for the tool used to scrape stuff out of the uterus. Could be a miscarriage. Could be an abortion. Could be polyp removal (like a uterine version of a skin tag, but can cause bleeding). Obtain a sample from an irritated uterus to test for cancer. Post menopausal women get this procedure. Old ladies. Young ladies.
Took me too long to come up with L =Live births.