The Joe Biden administration declared on Monday to the hospitals that must provide abortion services if the mother’s life is at risksaying the federal law on emergency treatment guidelines preempts state laws in jurisdictions that now ban the procedure without exception, following the Supreme Court’s decision to end a constitutional right to abortion.
The Department of Health and Human Services cited the requirements on medical facilities in the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). The law requires medical facilities to determine whether a person seeking treatment may be in labor or if you have an emergency health situation, or one that might become an emergency, and provide treatment.
“If a physician believes that a pregnant patient presenting to an emergency department is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA, and that abortion is the necessary stabilizing treatment to resolve that condition, the doctor must provide that treatmentor”, states the agency’s guide. “When a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life of the pregnant person, or establishes an exception narrower than the EMTALA definition of an emergency medical condition, that state law supersedes.”
Conditions in which women might abort in an emergency situation
The department said emergency conditions include “ectopic pregnancy, complications of pregnancy loss or emerging hypertensive disorders, as preeclampsia with severe features.
“It is critical that providers know that the professional and legal duty of a physician or other qualified medical personnel to provide stabilizing medical treatment to a patient who presents to the emergency department and is determined to be in an emergency medical condition supersedes any law or directly conflicting state mandate, that might otherwise prohibit such treatment,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote in a letter to health care providers.
The department says your guide does not reflect a new policyrather, it simply reminds physicians and providers of their existing obligations under federal law.
“Under federal law, providers in emergency situations must provide stabilizing care to someone with an emergency medical condition, including abortion care if needed, regardless of what state they live in” said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. . “CMS will do everything in its power to ensure patients receive the care they need.”
