Democrats deride Ron DeSantis’ call for ‘compassion’ for Texas mother seeking abortion

As one Texas woman’s troubled pregnancy hit national headlines — and Republican presidential candidates were asked about their anti-abortion stance in relation to cases like hers — national Democrats are deriding Ron DeSantis’ call for compassion.

DeSantis, on CNN’s town hall, did not directly address the case of Texas mother Kate Cox, who discovered in week 20 of her pregnancy that she was carrying a child with an often-fatal, rare chromosomal defect. She was told that continuing pregnancy could jeopardize her future fertility, according to reports.

“These are very difficult issues, and nobody would wish this to happen on anybody,” DeSantis said during the town hall.

He said such issues should be approached “with compassion,” echoing his rival, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

“If you’re in that situation as a mother, that’s an incredibly difficult thing to have to deal with,” he said.

DeSantis, however, has signed two laws that make it even more difficult than it is in Texas to get a medical exception to Florida’s abortion bans.

In 2022, DeSantis signed a 15-week ban on the procedure, with medical exceptions to save a mother’s life, to prevent serious injury to the mother or if the baby has a fatal abnormality. Unlike Texas, however, where just one doctor must certify when a medical exception is called for, Florida requires that two doctors attest in writing that medical complications present a reason for an abortion to be performed.

“If Kate Cox lived in Florida, Ron DeSantis’s cruel anti-abortion extremism could have her facing the same tragic situation that she faced in Texas — a fact he conveniently failed to mention this week when he dodged talking about the horrifying attack on women’s freedoms by MAGA Republicans in Cox’s home state,” said Sarafina Chitika, the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) national Press Secretary.

Florida’s six-week ban — before most women know they are pregnant — would go into effect 30 days after a ruling from the state Supreme Court if the court finds a 15-week ban, approved in 2022, is constitutional.

DeSantis, on CNN, emphasized the rarity of cases like this in his reply.

“I understand they’re very difficult and these things get a lot of press attention,” he said. “But that’s a very small percentage that those exceptions cover. You know, there’s a lot of other situations where we have an opportunity to realize really good human potential, and we’ve worked to protect as many lives as we could in Florida.”

Ultimately, Cox traveled out of Texas to abort her pregnancy. Her fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 18, which is a condition with a very high likelihood of miscarriage or stillbirth and low survival rates.

Other women are coming forward to talk about how the law has been applied to their specific situation with doctors unsure of what point the law considers an allowable exception to perform an abortion for the life of the mother.

Anya Cook of Broward County was one of 18 women on Nightline Thursday night recounting how she was sent home from a Coral Springs hospital after her amniotic fluid leaked out of her just a few days after she hit the 15-week mark.

She rushed to the hospital and was given startling news from the attending physician.

“He told me in that very moment you can get an infection, possibly sepsis and die,” Cook told journalist Diane Sawyer. “All I’m thinking is, ‘I’m at the hospital. I won’t die because I am at the hospital.’”

But, because of Florida’s 15-week ban on abortion, she was discharged to wait for her situation to worsen.

“The nurse asked if she could pray for me,” she said.

Medical records would later show that she later lost about half the blood in her body because of a rupture of the membranes, according to The Washington Post.

As a presidential candidate, DeSantis has committed to a 15-week federal abortion ban.