New Biden Administration Directive Seeks To Guarantee Emergency Reproductive Care
Letter sent to the nation's hospitals
The Biden administration released a letter Monday telling US hospitals that they must continue to provide emergency reproductive healthcare — even in states which are banning abortion services.
The letter, signed by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, reminds the nation's hospitals of their responsibilities under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).
The letter is the latest effort to continue to provide American women some guaranteed level of reproductive healthcare — even after the US Supreme Court struck down the 1973 decision Roe v Wade and upended half a century of national abortion rights.
Emergency health crises foreseen under the new letter include ectopic pregnancies, complications of pregnancy loss, emergent hypertensive disorders, such as preclampsia with severe features and more.
Federal emergency treatment law supersedes state law, Becerra reminded.
“The course of treatment necessary to stabilize such emergency medical conditions is also under the purview of the physician or other qualified medical personnel,” he wrote. “Stabilizing treatment could include medical and/or surgical interventions (e.g. abortion, removal of one or both fallopian tubes, anti-hypertensive therapy, methotrexate therapy, etc.) irrespective of any state laws or mandates that apply to specific procedures.
“Thus, if a physician believes that a pregnant patient presenting at an emergency department, including certain labor or delivery departments, is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA, and that abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment. And when a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person — or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA's emergency medical condition definition — that state law is preempted,” Becerra added.
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