The Trump administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has rescinded a 2022 Biden directive that threatened to force emergency room physicians in pro-life states to perform abortions against their better medical judgment.
“Led by Dr. Oz, the Trump administration has delivered another win for life and truth—stopping Biden’s attack on emergency care for both pregnant moms and their unborn children,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America.
Following the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Xavier Becerra, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under President Biden, sent “guidance” to health care providers regarding EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.
That law, enacted in 1986, is designed to ensure public access to emergency medical services regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. So even if a woman in active labor has no health insurance or other means of paying, federally funded health care facilities must provide screening, stabilizing treatment and, if necessary, transfer of the patient to a facility that is better equipped to continue treatment. It recognizes that in pregnancies, there are two patients, the mother and the unborn baby.
Becerra’s guidance claimed that EMTALA preempts any state’s pro-life laws and potentially would have required or coerced emergency room physicians to perform abortions in violation of the laws in pro-life states. Becerra threatened that if someone were to complain that a hospital or its personnel had violated EMTALA, the hospital and/or the physician could lose their status as a Medicare provider and possibly face fines.
Calling the rescinding of the Biden policy welcome news, Dr. Ingrid Skop, vice president and director of medical affairs at Charlotte Lozier Institute, said the Biden administration’s effort to promote abortion in this way was never medically necessary. “Every state pro-life law already permitted physicians to intervene immediately in a pregnancy emergency to protect a woman’s life,” Skop said. “I have always been able to provide quality care in obstetric emergencies, seeking to preserve the lives of both mother and child.”
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