Will SCOTUS Allow Pregnant Women to Die?

6/24/2024
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

A decision from the U.S. Supreme Court will be coming any day now in two cases, Idaho v. United States and Moyle v. United States, about whether states can prohibit doctors from treating women with life-threatening pregnancies until a patient’s condition deteriorates to the point where they are about to die.

The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) filed an amicus brief in these cases describing several of the more than 70 documented cases of women almost dying—and at least one who did die—when they were denied emergency medical care because of abortion bans enacted across the country after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. And “the true number of cases is likely significantly higher,” according the NWLC brief.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/24/emtala-supreme-court-women-die-abortion-bans-pregnant/

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

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

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

Some Republicans Were Willing to Compromise on Abortion Ban Exceptions. Activists Made Sure They Didn’t.

ProPublica reviewed 12 of the nation’s strictest abortion bans. Few changed in 2023, as state lawmakers caved to pressure from anti-abortion groups opposing exceptions for rape, incest and health risks.

by Kavitha Surana
Nov. 27, 2023

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federal protection for abortion, some states began enforcing strict abortion bans while others became new havens for the procedure. ProPublica is investigating how sweeping changes to reproductive health care access in America are affecting people, institutions and governments.

State Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt was speaking on the floor of the South Dakota Capitol, four months pregnant with her third child, begging her Republican colleagues to care about her life. “With the current law in place, I will tell you, I wake up fearful of my pregnancy and what it would mean for my children, my husband and my parents if something happened to me and the doctor cannot perform lifesaving measures,” she told her fellow lawmakers last February, her voice faltering as tears threatened.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/abortion-ban-exceptions-trigger-laws-health-risks

USA – Maternal Deaths Are Expected to Rise Under Abortion Bans, but the Increase May Be Hard to Measure

It’s clear that abortion bans can make pregnancy more dangerous, but experts say it may take years for maternal mortality data to reveal the toll.

by Kavitha Surana
July 27, 2023

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, doctors have warned that limiting abortion care will make pregnancy more dangerous in a country that already has the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized nations.

The case of Mylissa Farmer, a Missouri woman, is one example. Last August, her water broke less than 18 weeks into her pregnancy, when her fetus was not viable. She was at risk for developing a life-threatening infection if she continued the pregnancy. Yet during three separate visits to emergency rooms, she was denied abortion care because her fetus still had a heartbeat. Doctors specifically cited the state’s new abortion law in her medical records and said they could not intervene until her condition worsened. She eventually traveled to Illinois for care.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/tracking-maternal-deaths-under-abortion-bans

USA – Malpractice lawsuits over denied abortion care may be on the horizon

Sunday, June 25, 2023
Harris Meyer

A year after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many physicians and hospitals in the states that have restricted abortion reportedly are refusing to end the pregnancies of women facing health-threatening complications out of fear they might face criminal prosecution or loss of their medical license.

Some experts predict those providers could soon face a new legal threat: medical malpractice lawsuits alleging they harmed patients by failing to provide timely, necessary abortion care.

Continued: https://www.capradio.org/articles/2023/06/25/malpractice-lawsuits-over-denied-abortion-care-may-be-on-the-horizon/

Hospitals in Two States Denied an Abortion to a Miscarrying Patient. Investigators Say They Broke Federal Law.

Doctors told her she might die but she couldn’t have an abortion under state law until she got sicker, documents show. The Biden administration says failing to act violates a federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency care.

by Kavitha Surana
May 19, 2023

Mylissa Farmer knew her fetus was dying inside of her. Her water broke less than 18 weeks into her pregnancy last August, and she was desperate for an abortion.

But according to federal documents, during three emergency room visits over two days in Missouri and Kansas, doctors repeatedly gave Farmer the same chilling message: Though there was virtually no chance her fetus would survive and the pregnancy was putting her at high risk for life-threatening complications, there was nothing they could do for her.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/two-hospitals-denied-abortion-miscarrying-patient-breaking-federal-law

USA – Hospitals Finally Face Consequences for Denying Emergency Abortion Care

Biden administration warns hospitals will be held liable if they turn away patients who need an emergency abortion.

MAY 4, 2023
JESSICA MASON PIEKLO

For the first time since the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade threw the abortion access landscape into a tailspin, the Biden administration found two hospitals violated federal law when they refused to provide an abortion to Mylissa Farmer last August. It’s an important and sadly necessary step that should hopefully clarify to hospitals in states that have banned abortion that state bans do not trump federal law.

Farmer’s story is horrific and yet increasingly common in our post-Roe reality. In August, she was about 18 weeks pregnant when her water broke, which is a medical emergency at this stage in pregnancy. She was also living in Missouri, a state that immediately banned abortion after the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. And despite the fact that hospitals cannot deny abortions to patients in medical emergencies like Farmer was experiencing, two separate hospitals, one in Kansas and the other in Missouri, did just that.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/05/04/hospitals-finally-face-consequences-for-denying-emergency-abortion-care/

04.05.2023

Commentary

emergency abortions

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act

EMTALA

Mylissa Farmer

National Women’s Law Center

USA – Feds: Hospitals that denied emergency abortion broke the law

A first-of-its-kind federal investigation has found two hospitals put a pregnant woman's life in jeopardy and violated federal law by refusing to provide an emergency abortion when she experienced premature labor at 17 weeks

By AMANDA SEITZ, Associated Press
May 1, 2023

WASHINGTON -- Two hospitals that refused to provide an emergency abortion to a pregnant woman who was experiencing premature labor put her life in jeopardy and violated federal law, a first-of-its-kind investigation by the federal government has found.

The findings, revealed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, are a warning to hospitals around the country as they struggle to reconcile dozens of new state laws that ban or severely restrict abortion with a federal mandate for doctors to provide abortions when a woman's health is at risk. The competing edicts have been rolled out since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion last year.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/feds-hospitals-denied-emergency-abortion-broke-law-98983330