This IS becoming the state of things for women in certain states as lawmakers criminalize ANY treatment for women carrying ….
Things are going back to before Roe v Wade times in some places….
Some doctors do not want to risk criminal and civil charges….
An on the books Federal rule requiring treatment is NOT something they trust to help them against local and state prosocutors….They do not want to stuck in the middle….
The Fed’s can fine Hospitals (Who live on Federal funds) that turn away women….
The process takes time….
Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients who are in active labor and provide a medical transfer to another hospital if they don’t have the staff or resources to treat them. Medical facilities must comply with the law if they accept Medicare funding.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday that could weaken those protections. The Biden administration has sued Idaho over its abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, arguing it conflicts with the federal law.
“No woman should be denied the care she needs,” Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said in a statement. “All patients, including women who are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies, should have access to emergency medical care required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.”
Pregnant patients have “become radioactive to emergency departments” in states with extreme abortion restrictions, said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor.
“They are so scared of a pregnant patient, that the emergency medicine staff won’t even look. They just want these people gone,” Rosenbaum said.
Consider what happened to a woman who was nine months pregnant and having contractions when she arrived at the Falls Community Hospital in Marlin, Texas, in July 2022, a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion. The doctor on duty refused to see her.
“The physician came to the triage desk and told the patient that we did not have obstetric services or capabilities,” hospital staff told federal investigators during interviews, according to documents. “The nursing staff informed the physician that we could test her for the presence of amniotic fluid. However, the physician adamantly recommended the patient drive to a Waco hospital.”
Investigators with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concluded Falls Community Hospital broke the law….
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Emergency rooms are subject to hefty fines when they turn away patients, fail to stabilize them or transfer them to another hospital for treatment. Violations can also put hospitals’ Medicare funding at risk.
But it’s unclear what fines might be imposed on more than a dozen hospitals that the Biden administration says failed to properly treat pregnant patients in 2022.
It can take years for fines to be levied in these cases. The Health and Human Services agency, which enforces the law, declined to share if the hospitals have been referred to the agency’s Office of Inspector General for penalties….
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“A lot of these situations are not reported, but even the ones that are — like the cases out of the Midwest — they’re investigated but nothing really comes of it,” Huntsberger said. “People are just going to keep providing substandard care or not providing care. The only way that changes is things like this.”…
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“The Biden administration has no business rewriting federal law to override Idaho’s law and force doctors to perform abortions,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in a statement earlier this year.
Now, the Supreme Court will weigh in. The case could have implications in other states like Arizona, which is reinstating an 1864 law that bans all abortions, with an exception only if the mother’s life is at risk…..