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47
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Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) is a fierce opponent of abortion and has strongly supported the Florida law that bans abortions in Florida in nearly all cases. In Congress she has consistently voted for bills that make abortions harder to get. She is proud of her position.
Then one fine day about 2 years ago, after getting pregnant, her pregnancy was discovered to be problematic. She went to a hospital and the doctors said she needed an abortion to survive. She was amazed that instead of calling the operating room staff to get it ready for her abortion, they called the hospital lawyers to have a long discussion about whether giving her an abortion would be legal and the likely consequences for themselves and for the hospital and which course of action would be safest for them. She pulled up the text of the law on her phone and showed it to the doctors but they were not swayed. They estimated her to be roughly 5 weeks pregnant, in which case an abortion would be legal, but if they were a bit off and it was 6 weeks, they could lose their medical licenses and be fined for performing an abortion. Maybe the abortion would be legal, maybe not, and the lawyers were urging caution.
The discussions were taking too long for her taste, so Cammack did what any woman in danger of her life would do: She called the governor for help. Unfortunately, she couldn't get through to him. Eventually her condition became so serious that the doctors decided that the "life of the mother" exemption would cover them. But they could easily have decided that she had to get even closer to death for them to be safe.
Recently, Cammack asked journalist Tara Palmeri if she could come on Palmeri's show to talk about her work dealing with sexual harassment in Congress. Cammack personally requested the interview, knew it was on the record, for publication, and with no conditions. Palmeri agreed. After discussing harassment issues, Palmeri asked about Cammack's history of opposing abortions and then begging for one when she needed one. Cammack became very emotional.
Palmeri had to think long and hard about whether to cut the part about the abortion. In the end, she said that Cammack is a public official who asked to be interviewed on the record for publication. Cammack talked about a major public policy issue of national importance (abortion), so Palmeri didn't edit the interview. Here is the full interview, of which the first two minutes is Palmeri explaining why she aired the full interview. The bit about abortion starts around 40:45, but watch the first 2 minutes first:
The viewer comments on the interview on various platforms are deadly. The vast majority of them called Cammack a hypocrite and worse. Many say she effectively pulled rank and got a life-saving treatment in a borderline case that a woman who was not in Congress might not have gotten and would have died and that would be the fault of people like Cammack. In response, Cammack blamed everyone and their uncle—except the Republicans like herself that want such laws, except they don't want the laws to apply to themselves. (V)