Trump rescinds guidance protecting women in need of emergency abortions

Abortion rights supporters say scaling back Biden officials’ Emtala guidance will endanger pregnant patients’ lives

Carter Sherman
Tue 3 Jun 2025

The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded Biden-era guidance clarifying that hospitals in states with abortion bans cannot turn away pregnant patients who are in the midst of medical emergencies – a move that comes amid multiple red-state court battles over the guidance.

The guidance deals with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (Emtala), which requires hospitals to stabilize patients facing medical emergencies. States such as Idaho and Texas have argued that the Biden administration’s guidance, which it issued in the wake of the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade, interpreted Emtala incorrectly.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/03/trump-admin-emergency-abortion-emtala

03.06.2025

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Donald Trump

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

EMTALA

Joe Biden

Ketanji Brown Jackson

United States

Anti-choice

Politics

Biden declares Equal Rights Amendment adopted, sparking a debate about his abortion legacy

The move has no immediate legal force but will likely spark lawsuits that advocates hope will restore abortion rights.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein
01/17/2025

President Joe Biden’s Friday announcement declaring the Equal Rights Amendment part of the U.S. Constitution is reviving long-simmering tensions in the abortion-rights movement about the outgoing president’s legacy on reproductive rights.

The last-minute move, three days before the end of Biden’s term, has sparked arguments between Biden’s defenders and his detractors over its significance, since even the White House acknowledged the announcement does not have the force of law. And the president’s declaration is also fueling a broader debate about whether Biden did enough to prepare for and respond to the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/17/biden-era-abortion-legacy-00199115

Once a liability for Democrats, abortion gets new life with Harris as nominee

'It was a little frustrating that Biden can barely say the word abortion,' activist says

By Nina Heller
September 4, 2024

Reproductive rights groups say they are more confident that Vice President Kamala Harris will be able to appeal to voters, with some citing frustration with President Joe Biden’s abortion messaging.

Abortion access and reproductive rights have been a central theme in Harris’ campaign since she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket, with reproductive rights groups hopeful that the Harris campaign can use her message on the issue to further fuel voters’ enthusiasm for her.

Continued; https://rollcall.com/2024/09/04/once-a-liability-for-democrats-abortion-gets-new-life-with-harris-as-nominee/

Now Is the Time for Kamala Harris to Flip the Script and Win Big on Abortion

The Democrats have a chance to become the party that wants to grant you the freedom to terminate a pregnancy and the freedom to raise the children you want.

Amy Littlefield
Aug 21, 2024

Something unexpected happened to me while I was watching the Democratic National Convention on Monday night. I was sitting in my pajamas listening to Hillary Clinton’s speech when I started sobbing. Did Hillary Clinton just make me cry? I thought, horrified, afraid I might be having a sudden-onset midlife crisis. This was the woman I had protested in college over her support for the Iraq War. In 2016, I was a Bernie girl, and today, in 2024, I’m so outraged over Democrats’ support for the Israeli war on Gaza that I expected to watch the entire convention with my jaw clenched. But then Clinton invoked the legacy of Shirley Chishom. “In 1972, a fearless Black congresswoman named Shirley Chisholm, she ran for president, and her determination let me and millions of others dream bigger,” Clinton said. “Not just because of who she was, but because of who she fought for: working parents, poor children, the last, the least, and the lost.” Suddenly, I could see a portal between Chisholm’s “unbought and unbossed” feminism and this moment, and it dawned on me that the fall of Roe v. Wade had cracked that portal open.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kamala-harris-abortion-reproductive-justice/

21.08.2024

Commentary

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Global health charities warn of ‘huge and terrible’ threat to abortion rights if Trump returns

‘Global gag rule’ and funding cuts will be ‘on different scale’ if Republicans win again, family-planning providers say

Kat Lay, Global health correspondent
Fri 16 Aug 2024

Providers of women’s healthcare around the world are preparing for potentially disastrous consequences should Donald Trump win the US presidential election in November.

Policies pursued during Trump’s last presidency caused “devastating” harm in a number of countries, said Beth Schlachter, a senior director at MSI Reproductive Choices in the US. It meant “clinics shuttered, health teams closed, women dying … but a second Trump term will be on a different scale”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/16/global-health-charities-warning-threat-global-gag-rule-abortion-rights-family-planning-women-trump-project-2025

USA – The New Faces of Abortion Rights

Democrats used to talk about abortion in abstract terms. Now Harris campaign volunteers are getting specific and changing the debate.

By Peter Slevin
August 9, 2024

The crowd that greeted Kamala Harris in a high-school gym outside Milwaukee last month was delighted to the point of delirium. People roared when she said that, as a former prosecutor, she knows “Donald Trump’s type.” They cheered again when she spoke up for affordable child care and an assault-weapons ban. But when she said, “We trust women to make decisions about their own body,” the response was so loud that it nearly drowned out the end of the sentence. She shouted above the din, “And not have their government tell them what to do.”

… To make that emotional connection with voters, Meghan Mohr has helped more than a dozen women to talk about their abortions on the campaign trail. The women, called abortion storytellers, have introduced Harris at events, and they are training others to give their own testimonies in the hope of highlighting the stakes in November.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-new-faces-of-abortion-rights

Roe v. Wade Didn’t Go Far Enough For Abortion Rights, Hundreds Of Health Care Providers Tell Biden And Harris

In a letter shared exclusively with HuffPost, over 400 health care providers urge the administration to do more for abortion rights.

By Alanna Vagianos
Aug 6, 2024

More than 400 health care providers called on the Biden administration to “actively and unequivocally” support an abortion rights policy that goes further than Roe v. Wade and restores access to abortion later in pregnancy.

Advocacy group Physicians for Reproductive Health, along with 430 physicians providing sexual and reproductive health care, on Tuesday sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, urging them to do better on abortion care and gender-affirming care.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/roe-v-wade-didnt-go-far-enough-for-abortion-rights-hundreds-of-health-care-providers-tell-biden-and-harris_n_66b0f54de4b022eb04aa307d

06.08.2024

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Kamala Harris’ call for ‘reproductive freedom’ means restoring Roe

The position aligns with President Joe Biden but clashes with some abortion-rights activists championing her White House bid.

By MEGAN MESSERLY and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
07/29/2024

Kamala Harris jumped into the presidential race with a broad pledge to “restore reproductive freedom.” The Harris campaign specified Monday that she’s calling for restoring Roe v. Wade.

While many abortion-rights groups are championing her bid for the White House, some activists are frustrated with her position on the issue and plan to keep pushing to go further than President Joe Biden.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/29/kamala-harris-abortion-restoring-roe-00171657

Why it matters Kamala Harris isn’t afraid to say the word “abortion”

Pro-abortion advocates say Vice President Harris is running the most "unapologetic campaign on abortion rights" By NICOLE KARLIS, Salon

JULY 25, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t afraid to talk about and say the word “abortion.”

Unlike President Joe Biden, whose lack of use of the word has spurred news articles about the topic and websites tracking it, Harris has been notably more frank in her discourse about abortion (a detail that anti-abortion advocates have recently called out). The Vice President’s candid use of the word abortion and how she articulates what’s at stake is a welcome change, pro-abortion advocates say. It could energize voters who have felt hopeless in a post-Roe world.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2024/07/25/why-it-matters-kamala-harris-isnt-afraid-to-say-the-word-abortion/

Unlike Joe Biden, Kamala Harris will be a genuine champion for abortion rights

It was hard to get the president to talk about abortion at all, but Harris seems to realize that abortion rights are a winning issue

Moira Donegan
Thu 25 Jul 2024

When he was still the nominee, Joe Biden’s preferred euphemism for abortion was “Roe”. He would talk about “upholding” Roe v Wade even after June 2022, when the US supreme court struck it down. Reproductive rights advocates bristled at this, pointing out how many people had been denied abortions under Roe, and how flimsy the decision’s protection of reproductive rights had been on personal-autonomy or sex-equality grounds.

Frankly, it was hard to get the president to talk about abortion at all. He seemed to avoid even the word “abortion”. When he did talk about the procedure – and the bans on it that Republicans have unleashed across the country – he preferred to focus on women who had been denied emergency abortions for wanted pregnancies in the midst of tragic health complications.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/25/kamala-harris-abortion-rights-biden

25.07.2024