The Health and Human Services Department said Monday a federal law protecting access to emergency treatment mandates performing an abortion if a doctor deems it necessary in a medical emergency even if the procedure isn’t legal under state law.
Under such circumstances, a doctor “must provide that treatment,” and the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act pre-empts state law restricting abortion, the department said in new guidance to hospitals and doctors.
The department issued the guidance for performing abortions under the EMTALA law in a bid to clarify for doctors and hospitals struggling to reconcile state laws restricting abortion with EMTALA, which can require the procedure to stabilize certain patients.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, several doctors and hospitals said they are struggling to reconcile state laws that restrict abortion to saving a woman’s life with EMTALA’s mandate to stabilize emergency patients, including performing an abortion to protect a woman’s bodily functions or organs.
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