Journalist reignites attacks against Rep. Kat Cammack after her ectopic pregnancy

Journalist Tara Palmeri recently interviewed Florida Congresswoman Kat Cammack, questioning her about experiencing a "near-fatal" ectopic pregnancy in 2024. Palmeri said Cammack asked her "not to air the story," but that Cammack's "firsthand account of seeking emergency medical care under Florida's abortion laws is too important to ignore." Cammack has reportedly received death threats since going public with her story last year.

Palmeri aired that interview content anyway, titling it, "What Happens When Pro-Life Congresswoman Cammack Needs an Abortion?"

There's a huge problem here: treatment for an ectopic pregnancy isn't an abortion, and isn't classified as one under any pro-life state law.

Key Takeaways:

• Cammack suffered an ectopic pregnancy in 2024, and initially was delayed care over confusion regarding Florida's pro-life laws.

• She had to show doctors the text of the law showing that treatment for ectopic pregnancy is not legally an abortion.

• When Cammack received treatment, her preborn baby had already died, and was not actively killed. Her life was imminently at risk.

• Cammack has come forward since the story aired, noting that she has learned a (so far unnamed) pro-abortion group had been geofencing ads near the hospital to scare medical staff into believing that if they provided certain medical aid to a woman suffering a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, they would go to jail.

The Backstory:

In 2024, Kat Cammack suffered an ectopic pregnancy and required emergency care, but doctors at a Florida emergency room delayed treating her amid confusion over the state's pro-life law.

Cammack's story was published in 2025 by the Wall Street Journal under the misleading headline, "Republican's Life-Threatening Pregnancy Collided with Florida's Abortion Politics." It was then shared by multiple media outlets, including The Independent, which continued the confusion by claiming, "Republican lawmaker with ectopic pregnancy nearly died amid new Florida abortion laws — but blames the left."

While these articles claimed the state's pro-life law prevented doctors from acting (and criticized Cammack for blaming the "fearmongering" of abortion advocates for the negligent care she received), they also pointed out that Cammack was "forced to pull up the letter of the law on her phone" to show doctors that ectopic pregnancy care is not legally an abortion.

It was only then that she was given the care she required.

Read more about Cammack's story here.

The Details:

Despite Cammack's request not to air the portion of the interview that included her personal ectopic pregnancy story, journalist Tara Palmeri did so anyway, because "her firsthand account of seeking emergency medical care under Florida's abortion laws is too important to ignore." Palmeri said:

Cammack described what it was like to face a life-threatening pregnancy complication in Florida, a state with restrictive heartbeat abortion laws.

She spoke about needing an emergency medical procedure and how she believes delays in treatment nearly cost her her life. The conversation became emotional because it transformed what is often a political debate into a truly personal story.

After the interview, Congresswoman Cammack asked me not to air that portion of our discussion. She said she feared renewed backlash and concerns for her family's safety. She had discussed this experience publicly before, and the interview was conducted on the record without any conditions on the topics we could discuss. I thought really carefully about her request.

As a journalist, I often deal with sensitive subjects, and I take it very seriously to protect vulnerable sources when appropriate. But Congresswoman Cammack is a public official discussing a matter that relates directly to one of the most consequential policy debates in this country."

During the interview, Palmeri asked Cammack:

"I do want to talk about something that you have spoken publicly about, an extremely vulnerable moment in your life and I applaud you for doing that because I know it's not easy, but you know, you suffered a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy and you had to make the decision to terminate that pregnancy to save your own life; what was that like?"

Palmeri was wrong from the start: Cammack didn't "make the decision to terminate that pregnancy." She was suffering from a cornual ectopic pregnancy, the most dangerous form. Cammack didn't choose between herself or her baby, who had no heartbeat.

Even a heartbeat had been detected, her situation was such that once a rupture occurred, the baby would have died, and Cammack was at risk of death as well.

The fact that abortion advocates still continue to insist there is no difference between ectopic pregnancy treatments, miscarriage treatments, and abortions is, quite frankly, the reason why many women have been put at greater risk. They choose to ignore not only science but the law, which draws clear distinctions between induced abortion and miscarriage/ectopic treatments.

Then, they use women's stories for their own agenda. In fact, they've admitted to doing so.

Cammack told Palmeri her experience was "awful" and "heartbreaking," and reminded Palmeri that there was no heartbeat, after it took about 10 days to receive a proper diagnosis. This is not uncommon, and doctors often cannot tell if a woman is miscarrying or if the pregnancy is ectopic.

Once they confirmed it was ectopic, they had to act quickly. As Cammack explained:

"They said that given where it was, because the HCG levels were continuing to rise, it would eventually rupture and it would cause internal bleeding, and there was a very real risk of dying. That's when they told me, 'You have to go now. You have to go to the ER.' And they gave me two options. They said, 'You can either do the surgery, which, because of where this ectopic is, you will likely lose your uterus. Or you can do a shot of methotrexate, which is a cancer drug.' It stops the chemical from continuing to produce.

And so I go into the ER, and they bring me back, and then all of a sudden it was like, 'Wait, we have questions.' And that started me down the path of 1. how broken the system is and 2. how politics has really, really endangered a lot of women's lives in very vulnerable moments."

Zoom In:

Palmeri asked Cammack if she thought the heartbeat law in Florida needs to be changed:

"When you met that resistance with doctors, did you think to yourself, 'We've got to change this law?' You're an educated, eloquent congresswoman. Imagine if you didn't know the law, you were just a regular person, perhaps coming from a disadvantaged background, you get the same sort of diagnosis; how do you convince your doctors that it's worth the penalty... that it's worth it to risk their professions to save your life?"

But again, Palmeri's question reveals she hasn't done due diligence as a journalist.

Doctors didn't have to "risk their profession," because ectopic pregnancy care is not an abortion, and this is clearly defined in the law — so, no one was risking their professions... they were only misled into believing they were. So why were they confused?

Cammack said a nurse told her there were some things an admin had to "figure out" because, according to the law, if they gave her a shot of methotrexate, they would be held liable. Cammack told them that wasn't true, and the nurse agreed with her.

The nurse then showed Cammack an ad she had saved on her phone, which claimed that any nurse, doctor, or technician who helped any woman who was miscarrying or having an ectopic pregnancy would go to jail.

"I sat there in disbelief... I said, 'You've got to be f-ing kidding me," said Cammack. "And I looked at the group, and it was a pro-abortion group that was against the Florida law, and come to find out.... they had been geofencing around hospitals and any system that they could to scare doctors and nurses away from providing care."

It was a multi-million dollar ad campaign meant to frighten medical teams out of treating women, and Florida eventually tried to sue the group.

In the emergency room, Cammack pulled up her phone and read them the law, and they said they still had to do some checking.

She finally got the care she needed, but when she told the story, she received death threats.

People claimed she called the governor and got an exception, which Cammack claims is false. She continues to receive threats from "pro-choice" people who told her she should have bled out and died. They even threatened her daughter. She said people don't want to know the facts.

But then Palmeri said:

"I just want to pull back a little bit from there. Yes, I think the disinformation is horrible, right? Obviously intended to confuse, create chaos, and show the weakness in the law, right? Or at least the impression that these laws haven't been properly communicated to hospitals. The people who are in charge of this have not been trained. They ... don't have awareness from the government, the administrators.

Why do you have to go through an administrative process in a life-threatening situation? ... Clearly, there are some flaws in this law. But ... you have to understand that laws that have a penalty like that is going to breed misinformation, whether it's accurate or not. Does it make you at least want to rethink these abortion laws in some way?"

Cammack replied that after their "rainbow baby" was born, she became even "more of an advocate for life. ... And in talking about the ways that these are written and communicated, we absolutely have to do a better job. And we have to understand the danger of playing politics with issues like this."

She's not wrong. While pro-life laws can be very clear, it often takes a lot of wording to get there.

Under Florida law, abortion is defined as "the termination of human pregnancy with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead fetus." This alone leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation.

Abortion should be clearly defined as an act to intentionally and directly kill or cause the death of the preborn child. The goal of an induced abortion is a dead baby.

There will always be so-called exceptions that the law will need to spell out, including that physical medical emergency treatments are not abortions and that certain cancer treatments are also not abortions.

The Florida law does this by stating that after six weeks, abortion is illegal except under certain exceptions, including medical emergencies.

On May 2, 2024, the day after the six-week abortion law took effect, and in the same month in which Cammack experienced the ectopic pregnancy, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration published rules for hospitals and abortion businesses regarding emergencies during pregnancy.

Medical emergencies, including ectopic pregnancies, were described as presenting “an immediate danger to the health, safety and welfare of women and unborn children in hospitals and abortion clinics.”

Even the Abortion Defense Network understands this, writing:

The legal consensus is that the definition of “abortion” excludes the “removal” of a fetus that is “dead” (generally understood to mean there is no cardiac activity present in the embryo or fetus) and management of an ectopic pregnancy (including use of methotrexate and surgical removal).

This means that treatment for miscarriage where there is no cardiac activity (including medications, D&C, D&E, and labor induction) is not an abortion under Florida law and thus is not prohibited.

The Big Picture:

Despite Palmeri complimenting Cammack, calling her a feminist, and even hearing Cammack stating that headlines are not the whole story, Palmeri ran the interview with the headline, "What Happens When Pro-Life Congresswoman Cammack Needs an Abortion?"

She said she "carefully thought" out the decision to run the interview, despite Cammack's safety concerns. But that decision appears to have been made on the same day, and perhaps within minutes of their conversation. Palmeri received heavy pushback on social media, and also earned a response from Cammack, who penned "The Truth About My Ectopic Pregnancy — and the Lies That Followed." In that post, Cammack explained:

Recently, I was interviewed about sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill and the work we're doing to protect women. The host pivoted to one of the most painful experiences of my life: an ectopic pregnancy that nearly killed me. I was brutally transparent. She then told me she was going to air it on Father's Day. The first Father's Day my family would experience since our rainbow baby was born.

I asked her to hold off on publishing that portion of the interview for security reasons. I told her the specifics in detail. She didn't care. She denied my request, saying the story was "in the public interest." Fine. Then let's tell the whole story.

Cammack continued:

I have received hundreds of death threats. Against me. Against my daughter. Against my team.

Recently, one man who made specific threats against my family skipped his court date. Law enforcement cannot find him. They are still looking for him. This was the issue that brought this man to my doorstep. That is why I asked her to hold off until they could locate him. It wasn't because the facts were inconvenient as you've been led to believe. That was the environment in which this interview aired. That is why I asked for a delay. Not because I wanted the story buried. Not because I was unwilling to talk about what happened. I was asking for time while law enforcement searched for someone who had threatened my family.

There is a difference. A very important one.

And shortly after Palmeri published the interview, more threats against Cammack came in, including:

• I hope you drop dead

• Hope you and your kid get run over by a bus

• Hope you and your kid get shot

• Hope your kid gets shot. Again and again
  

Cammack again explained the medical emergency she experienced, and the treatment:

The purpose of my treatment wasn't to terminate a viable pregnancy," she wrote. "It was to prevent a rupture that could have killed me. It has never been classified as an abortion. Not in Florida. Not in any of the 50 states. Not by ACOG. Not by major medical organizations. Not even Planned Parenthood.

She then explained how Planned Parenthood's website used to share the truth, saying, "Treating an ectopic pregnancy isn't the same thing as getting an abortion." After Roe v. Wade fell in 2022, it removed that wording.

"Because the truth had become inconvenient to the narrative they wanted to run," she said. "The narrative that pro-life laws prohibit emergency medical care. They don't."

She also explained (emphasis added):

The law contained explicit protections for treatment of ectopic pregnancies and medical emergencies threatening the life of the mother. The words are in the statute. The authority existed. So why was there confusion? Why was there a delay in my care that night?

The Bottom Line:

Cammack explained what she thinks caused the delay:

A pro-abortion group spent millions geofencing false ads around Florida's hospitals, telling doctors and nurses they'd face criminal prosecution for treating miscarriages and ectopics. The nurse treating me showed me one of those ads on her phone. It was a lie. And it created confusion at exactly the moment clarity mattered most.

She noted:

Florida ultimately threatened legal action over those ads because they misrepresented what the law actually said. THOSE groups and those advertisements endangered women. And now many of those same groups are using my story—my baby—to push the exact same lie.

She concluded:

The pro-abortion lobby is demanding that you stop applying logic. They want you to believe a baby is precious and worth grieving when it's wanted — and simultaneously a clump of cells unworthy of any protection when it's not. Both cannot be true at the same time.

That is not a political opinion. It's the most basic principle in all of human reasoning. Aristotle called it the principle of non-contradiction: a thing cannot both be and not be the same thing simultaneously.

They need you to abandon logic to accept their position. Don't. They need you to believe that a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy or a stillbirth belongs in the same conversation as elective abortions of healthy babies and moms. Their entire agenda depends on it.