Anti-abortion states are targeting an emergency healthcare law. Will the supreme court side with them?

Justices to rule whether abortion bans should undo Emtala, the Reagan-era law requiring hospitals to treat emergency patients

Jessica Glenza
Sun 21 Apr 2024

One of the only universal rights to healthcare in the US is to be treated in the emergency room – a place where doctors are required to stabilize patients if their future health or life is in serious jeopardy.

That right, guaranteed by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known across the country by healthcare professionals as Emtala, was borne out of what was once a common practice called “patient dumping” – transferring patients who could not pay from private hospitals to public counterparts, even in emergency situations.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/apr/21/emtala-supreme-court-abortion

USA – ‘Very clear’ or ‘narrow and confusing’? Abortion lawsuits highlight confusion over emergency exceptions

N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY
Jan 27, 2024

A North Dakota judge's recent decision to deny a request blocking part of the state's restrictive abortion law highlights an issue abortion-rights advocates say is impacting doctors nationwide: The exceptions in strict abortion laws can be vague, causing medical providers to question when they can perform an abortion in a medical emergency.

A lawsuit in North Dakota is one of several recently filed by advocates seeking to clarify and expand the circumstances under which doctors can provide abortions during medical emergencies in states with strict abortion bans. Mary Ziegler, a professor of law at University of California, Davis, said the emergency exceptions written into these laws can be confusing for physicians and, given their high penalties, can lead doctors to "err on the side of protecting themselves and not providing care to patients."

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/27/abortion-lawsuits-emergency-medical-exceptions/72339103007/

Most state abortion bans have limited exceptions − but it’s hard to understand what they mean

January 26, 2024 Naomi Cahn, Sonia Suter

More than a year after the Supreme Court found there is no fundamental right to get an abortion, 21 states have laws in effect that ban abortion well before fetal viability, generally allowing it only in the first trimester.

Fourteen of these 21 states have also issued near-total bans on abortion from the point of conception. But it’s not clear when, if ever, an abortion would be permissible under these near-total bans.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/most-state-abortion-bans-have-limited-exceptions-but-its-hard-to-understand-what-they-mean-221389

26.01.2024

Commentary

abortion exemptions

abortion law exceptions

Center for Reproductive Rights

USA – Doctors face ‘a perpetual rollercoaster’ as abortion returns to the Supreme Court

Two cases — one concerning medication abortion and another about providing the procedure in medical emergencies — could further upend a profession already under siege.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
January 19, 2024

Less than two years ago, the Supreme Court eliminated the federal right to an abortion, a decision that the court’s conservative majority suggested would remove them from further litigation of abortion rights..

”The Court’s decision properly leaves the question of abortion for the people and their elected representatives in the democratic process,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2024/01/doctors-emtala-mifepristone-impact-abortion-supreme-court/

19.01.2024

abortion pills

Brett Kavanaugh

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

What to Know About the Federal Law at the Heart of the Latest Supreme Court Abortion Case

The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA, requires hospitals to provide medically necessary care to stabilize patients in emergency situations.

By Pam Belluck
Jan. 18, 2024

One of the newest battlefields in the abortion debate is a decades-old federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known by doctors and health policymakers as EMTALA.

The issue involves whether the law requires hospital emergency rooms to provide abortions in urgent circumstances, including when a woman’s health is threatened by continuing her pregnancy. But, as with many abortion-related arguments, this one could have broader implications. Some legal experts say it could potentially determine how restrictive state abortion laws are allowed to be and whether states can prevent emergency rooms from providing other types of medical care, such as gender-affirming treatments.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/health/emtala-abortion-supreme-court.html

A Young Woman Almost Died Due to Texas’ Abortion Bans. Now She’s Battling to Save Other Women

Jan 12, 2024
by BONNIE FULLER

“I can’t carry a pregnancy again,” Amanda Zurawski said sadly, but matter of factly. The Austin, Texas, resident will never be able to carry a pregnancy again because she was refused a necessary abortion in her state after her water broke at 18 weeks, long before her baby would have been viable.

Tragically, the delay in receiving what used to be normal healthcare allowed a massive bacterial infection to develop and turn into life-threatening sepsis—which ravaged her body and reproductive organs.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/12/amanda-zurawski-texas-abortion-kate-cox-republicans-womens-health/

“It doesn’t make sense”: What happens when life-saving abortion isn’t protected, despite federal law

Texas and Idaho have challenged whether or not the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act takes priority

By Nicole Karlis, Slate
January 10, 2024

Last week, a ruling in Texas stated that hospitals and emergency rooms in the state are exempt from having to perform life-saving abortions.

Specifically, a federal appeals court ruled that hospitals that receive federal funding in Texas aren’t required to provide life-saving abortions under a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). The debate on whether or not EMTALA covers abortions dates back to shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated EMTALA took priority over state laws. Under EMTALA, hospitals and emergency rooms are required to provide life-saving abortions even where there are strict abortions laws, the Biden administration stated. However, states like Texas and Idaho are challenging this and claiming that EMTALA doesn’t take priority.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2024/01/10/life-saving-abortion-texas-idaho-emtala/

10.01.2024

American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians

Dr. Caitlin Gustafson

Dr. David Hackney

emergency abortions

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

Law protecting women seeking emergency abortions is target in US supreme court case

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act is at the heart of the court’s latest blockbuster abortion case, which comes out of Idaho

Carter Sherman
Tue 9 Jan 2024

Mylissa Farmer’s pregnancy was doomed. But no one would help her end it. Over the course of a few days in August 2022, Farmer visited two hospitals in Missouri and Kansas, where doctors agreed that because the 41-year-old’s water had broken just 18 weeks into her pregnancy, there was no chance that she would give birth to a healthy baby. Continuing the pregnancy could risk Farmer’s health and life – yet the doctors could not act.

Weeks earlier, the US supreme court had overturned Roe v Wade and abolished the national right to abortion. It was, legal counsel at one hospital determined, “too risky in this heated political environment to intervene”, according to legal filings.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/09/emergency-abortion-supreme-court-case-emtala-idaho

USA – An Overwhelming Majority of Voters Want Hospitals to Provide Medically Necessary Abortions in All States

By Matthew Cortland
Jan 8, 2024

Last week, the Supreme Court announced that it will decide whether federal law permits hospitals to perform emergency “medically necessary” abortions in states that prohibit abortion.

… A new Data for Progress survey finds that an overwhelming majority of voters (85%) across party lines support a rule requiring all U.S. hospitals to provide an emergency abortion when it is “medically necessary.” This includes 89% of Democrats, 88% of Independents, and 77% of Republicans.

Continued: https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/1/8/an-overwhelming-majority-of-voters-want-hospitals-to-provide-medically-necessary-abortions-in-all-states

08.01.2024

News

Data for Progress survey

emergency abortions

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

EMTALA

opinion polls on abortion

public support for abortion

United States

Human Rights

Kate Cox is one of hundreds in Texas denied abortions despite serious health risks, data show

By Olivia Goldhill
Dec. 15, 2023

A Texas woman’s unsuccessful legal fight for an abortion on medical emergency grounds drew nationwide headlines in recent days, but her plight is hardly a rare occurrence amid vague and highly restrictive state laws in the post-Roe era. Kate Cox is likely one of hundreds, if not thousands, of Texans who’ve faced a similar struggle this year to get an abortion for medical reasons, according to a STAT review of studies and abortion data from other states.

Over the first six months of this year, there were 34 legal abortions recorded in Texas, all of which were categorized as both “medical emergencies” and to “preserve the health of the woman,” in a state where abortions are only permitted under such circumstances. That figure, said physicians and researchers, is far below the number of patients who would typically need abortions to protect the health of the mother, suggesting many women have been forced to continue pregnancies despite the risks, or to travel out of state for abortions.

Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2023/12/15/abortion-kate-cox-texas-health-risks-trisomy-18/