Kelly Morrison and five other Democratic physicians team up to form Congressional Doctors Caucus

President Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his health secretary prompted Rep. Kelly Morrison, the first OB-GYN who supports abortion rights elected to Congress, and other Democratic doctors in Congress to speak out.

They got together and held a news conference in February to publicly oppose Kennedy’s nomination. And realizing there were more than a handful of them, they decided it was time to organize.

While a GOP Doctors Caucus already exists, there has not been one exclusively for Democrats. Morrison is now one of the founding members of the Congressional Doctors Caucus made up of six Democratic doctors in the House. The others are from California, Oregon, Washington and New Jersey.

“I think we have an important role as a caucus to explain some of these complicated things,” Morrison said in an interview. “Not everyone went to medical school and understands the way a drug works or how certain treatments impact an individual or the community.”

The creation of the caucus comes at a critical time, members say. Kennedy has been confirmed as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, cuts are looming to Medicaid and medical research, and there’s a developing measles outbreak in Texas.

“As doctors, we understand the pain and suffering that people endure for not having access to care,” Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-California, said in a statement announcing the caucus. “We will work to ensure that every American has the health care they need.”

Morrison has become a familiar face on social media and has been taking to X to post short videos weighing in on everything from debunking Kennedy’s claim that supplements like vitamin A can be used to treat measles to explaining how cuts to Medicaid could hurt OB-GYN care in rural America alongside other doctors.

“We’ve got to work really hard to speak calmly and clearly to the American people about what’s going on so that we’re all on the same page and understanding the issues as they come up,” she said.

While she did not want Kennedy to be confirmed, Morrison said she and the rest of the caucus are willing to meet with him if it means they can work to find common ground.

“If he’s willing to listen to the science and the data and the evidence to propose good policy, I am more than happy to work with him,” she said. “But I think that one of the big challenges we have is pushing back against all of the conspiracies and the bad information that is out there.”

Protecting reproductive rights was central to Morrison’s 2024 campaign, which may have also played a role in her victory last year.

Federal spending cuts and their impact on Medicaid and medical research have dominated headlines as Trump’s first months in the White House have unfolded, but Morrison said threats to accessing abortion remain.

Morrison points to Kennedy indicating that he’s open to following Trump’s lead on how to regulate the abortion drug mifepristone.

“If they do continue to erode access to that medicine, that will be catastrophic because it will impact people, even people who live in states that have passed state [abortion] protections, because that would become federal law and that medicine would not be available,” she said.

“So I think we need to be vigilant,” Morrison said.