KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is investigating a Joplin hospital where a woman said she was denied a medical abortion because of the state’s ban on the procedure, a situation that has gained a close focus in the race for U.S. Senate.
Lisa Cox, a spokesperson for DHSS, said in an email Monday that the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services authorized the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act investigation of the hospital on Oct. 20. Cox confirmed the investigation was of the hospital and not the woman.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a 1986 federal law, prohibits hospitals with emergency departments from refusing to treat people with an emergency medical condition.
