Does U.S. health care law protect emergency abortion? Here’s what to know
Global News
The U.S. Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act went into effect in 1986 and was aimed at making sure people could get emergency care regardless of their ability to pay.
The Biden administration has filed its first legal challenge to a state abortion ban since the end of Roe v. Wade, arguing Idaho’s restrictive abortion law leaves doctors facing criminal penalties for providing abortion-related medical care to women in life-threatening medical situations.
The U.S. Justice Department may have a strong argument in the Idaho case filed under federal health care law, but even if they win it wouldn’t allow full access to abortion there, legal experts said. It could, though, give doctors more latitude to provide an abortion in an emergency or a situation that could become one.
But Texas is already pushing back with another lawsuit over the same federal statute, arguing federal health-care law doesn’t allow for abortion-related care banned under state law.
Here’s a look at how the dueling cases could affect the fraught medical and legal landscape after the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to abortion:
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, went into effect in 1986 and was aimed at making sure people could get emergency care regardless of their ability to pay. It’s been at the center of court battles before.
In the 1992 case of “Baby K,” for example, a court sided with parents who said the federal law required a hospital to keep treating a baby born without a cerebral cortex, even though doctors said it would be medically futile and cited a state law in support, said Lindsay Wiley, a law professor and director of the Health Law and Policy Program at UCLA Law.
Hospitals that violate the emergency treatment act could lose access to payments from Medicare, a major blow.
The Idaho lawsuit comes after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued similar guidance, saying hospitals must provide abortion services in emergencies or situations that could become emergencies.
