The Atlantic brings this out…
But it would be up to the Biden admin to enforce it in states that prohibit abortion procedures…
And THAT would be a tough guerrilla fight state to state….
The law is called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act(EMTALA). It was passed by Congress in 1986 and requires all hospitals with an emergency department that accept Medicare or Medicaid, and the physicians who work at these hospitals, to provide stabilizing treatment to any patient who is in labor or experiencing a medical emergency. The law was originally passed as an anti-patient-dumping statute designed to prevent hospitals from turning away uninsured patients; to do so, it created the obligation for emergency departments to treat medical emergencies regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. But the statute’s obligations go beyond this original purpose, and the Biden administration could use it to create legal risk for hospitals that deny lifesaving abortion care.
Because EMTALA is a federal law, it trumps state laws, including state abortion laws, and its definition of a medical emergency therefore trumps a life-or-health exception in any state abortion ban. Such exceptions in state abortion laws are typically quite narrow and create uncertainty for providers about when the pregnant person’s life is threatened enough to justify an abortion. For example, in the case of ectopic pregnancies, some hospitals and physicians will wait to intervene until after the pregnancy ruptures, causing the mother to hemorrhage and to be at immediate risk of dying, even though this outcome could have been prevented.
EMTALA’s definition of a medical emergency is broader and includes any person in labor or suffering from a condition that, without immediate attention, could be reasonably expected to seriously jeopardize their health, impair a bodily function, or cause dysfunction in an organ. This definition covers many urgent pregnancy conditions, including PPROM, ectopic pregnancy, and complications from incomplete miscarriage or self-managed abortion. Because EMTALA has broader protections for patients and supersedes state law, it can be used to protect patients and their health even in states with extremely restrictive abortion laws….
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The post-Roe world will be disastrous and chaotic. EMTALA will not make the overwhelming majority of abortions legal in anti-abortion states or stop the coming parade of horribles. But it could save lives and reduce unnecessary carnage. For it to work as it could, though, the Biden administration needs to wield the statute as a sword