Federal health officials have abandoned Tuesday’s guidance issued by former President Joe Biden, which said Medicare-funded hospitals must provide life-saving abortion care, regardless of the state’s ban. (Photo: Otto Kitzinger/Idaho Capital Sun)
It is found at the US Department of Health and Human Services Guidance has been cancelled The hospital, published in July 2022, said it was responsible for providing emergency abortion care despite the state’s ban and did not reflect the policies of the Trump administration.
The Emergency Medical Labor Act (EMTALA) is a federal law that requires hospitals that accept Medicare funds to provide stabilized care to those who come to the emergency room for care. After the June 2022 DOBBS decision that allowed states to regulate abortion access and more than a dozen states to implement a total abortion ban, the Department of Health and Human Services under former Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration issued guidance to strengthen hospital obligations under Emtala, regardless of state policy. Abortion is a type of stabilizing care in certain situations, such as when the water in a pregnant patient breaks prematurely and the fetus is still not feasible.
“The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will continue to implement EMTALA, which protects all individuals presented to the emergency department of hospitals seeking testing or treatment, including identified emergency medical conditions that put the health of pregnant women or fetals at serious risk,” the announcement on Tuesday said. “CMS works to correct the perceived legal disruption and instability created by previous administration actions.”
The statement did not further elaborate on what it means if EMTALA’s obligations contradict the state’s abortion ban. In the court, an Idaho lawyer discussing on behalf of the state said Emtala doesn’t need to have an abortion as part of stabilizing care. The judge sent the case back to the circuit court for further consideration, but the Trump administration Breaks down the Biden era lawsuit For Idaho in early March.
Abortion rights advocacy groups said the move sends a clear message that the administration is siding with its anti-abortion enemy.
“If we strip you of federal guidance in favour of what the law requires, your lives are at risk,” Fatima Gos Graves, president and CEO of the National Center for Women’s Law, said in a statement. “To be clear: this measure will not change the legal obligations of hospitals, but it adds to the fear, confusion and dangerous delays that patients and health care providers have faced since the collapse of Wade.”
Doctors in places like Idaho, where the Biden administration called for a state’s near-simultaneous abortion ban related to Emtala, say the ban was a confusion. For the past three years, court injunctions have been filed through lawsuits, and in 2024, when staff at the state’s largest hospital had not been set up for four months. Six patients were airlifted This is because other states had uncertainty about whether they could be prosecuted under state law. Patients can also file complaints under the EMTALA Act and may lose their status as a Medicare provider and funds if the hospital is found to be in violation.
St. Luke, the state’s largest hospital system; A new lawsuit has been filed As plaintiffs in January, he predicted that the Trump Justice Department would drop it. In that case, the federal judge issued an a New injunction It protects St. Luke’s doctors from prosecutors under the state’s ban, but other Idaho doctors outside of their healthcare system are not protected by it.
Federal health agencies have also been withdrawn letter Written by Xavier Becerra, Biden’s former HHS secretary, he told healthcare providers that federal law protected the clinical judgment and the actions they take to provide stabilizing treatment regardless of the state they practice.
Since 2022, there have been several lawsuits over Emtala outside of Idaho. This includes a Tennessee lawsuit filed in January by the Catholic Medical Association, which specifically challenged the July 2022 guidance. The association said it alleged that Biden-era memos and accompanying letters were issued without proper administrative procedures and violated the freedom of the physician’s religion.
On Tuesday, when DHHS revoked its guidance, the association dropped the lawsuit.
Regina Davis Moss is the president and CEO of a reproductive health and sexuality advocacy organization called by our own voice, a former HHS employee and a longtime advocate for better reproductive health outcomes for black women, girls and non-binary people. Moss said black women are already two to three times more likely to die during pregnancy than white women, and that this policy change at EMTALA will only help exacerbate these statistics.
“We’re changing the scope and spirit of why we had to have Emtala in the first place,” Moss said. “It leads to delayed care and puts the lives of pregnant people at risk.”
