In the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling last week that dismissed an appeal over Idaho’s abortion law, two top federal officials sent letters to hospitals saying that they have a legal requirement to perform emergency abortions.
In a letter from Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Director Chiquita Brooks-LaSure to health care providers, the two said hospitals are required under the law to require what they described as stabilizing treatment, including abortions.
“No pregnant woman or her family should have to even begin to worry that she could be denied the treatment she needs to stabilize her emergency medical condition in the emergency room,” the letter said.
“And yet, we have heard story after story describing the experiences of pregnant women presenting to hospital emergency departments with emergency medical conditions and being turned away because medical providers were uncertain about what treatment they were permitted to provide.”
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that doctors in Idaho have to provide emergency abortions for the time being; in a case addressing a law passed by the state Legislature that places a near-total ban on abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of a mother.
The top court said that the state needs to comply with a 1986 federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, that requires emergency rooms to provide “emergency services” to patients who are deemed to be in critical condition.
The letter added that CMS will also resume investigations into complaints against emergency rooms in Idaho following the court’s decision. Under the law, U.S. hospitals that have received Medicare money have to screen anyone who comes into emergency rooms to see whether that person has an emergency medical condition—regardless of whether they have the means to pay.
The high court’s decision last week did not settle a legal dispute on whether the Idaho abortion ban overrides the 1968 federal law that mandates hospitals provide stabilizing treatment to critical patients.
Earlier this year, the Idaho Defense of Life Act went into effect, which includes felony charges for those who perform illegal abortions.
The law stipulates that the life of the mother has to be at risk before an abortion is performed, which federal government attorneys took issue with, saying that the bar should be set much lower. Attorneys for the federal government had sued to allow emergency abortions where a woman’s health was threatened, later arguing before the Supreme Court that the Idaho law violates the 1986 law.
“This is untrue,” the group said. “All state pro-life laws provide an abortion exception for those rare but tragic circumstances in which a pregnancy poses a threat to a mother’s life, including circumstances when death is not imminent. Those include Texas and Idaho.”
Supreme Court Decision
By a 6–3 vote in late June, the high court issued an order reversing the court’s earlier order that had allowed an Idaho abortion ban to go into effect, even in medical emergencies. The ruling, for now, allows Idaho to perform emergency abortions when the woman’s health is believed to be at risk, in order to comply with the federal law.“I am now convinced that these cases are no longer appropriate for early resolution,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in concurrence with the majority to dismiss the case, pointing to revisions Idaho made to its abortion law and the Biden administration arguing it was only seeking to allow emergency abortions in rare cases.
After the ruling, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the Department of Justice will continue targeting the case and will use “every available tool to ensure that women in every state have access to that care.”
