Physicians must continue to offer abortions in cases of medical emergencies without exception, Joe Biden’s administration said on Monday, as it insisted federal law would overrule any total state bans on abortion.
In a letter to healthcare providers, the president’s health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) protects providers from any purported state restrictions should they be required to perform emergency abortions.
“Under the law, no matter where you live, women have the right to emergency care – including abortion care,” Becerra said. “Today, in no uncertain terms, we are reinforcing that we expect providers to continue offering these services, and that federal law preempts state abortion bans when needed for emergency care.”
Becerra said medical emergencies include ectopic pregnancies, complications arising from miscarriages, and pre-eclampsia, NBC News reported.
A hospital found to have violated the federal law could be stripped of its Medicare provider status and subjected to “civil monetary penalties”, Becerra added.
The health secretary’s intervention comes as abortion bans have already taken effect in 13 states, with 13 more states expected to follow. The bans are taking effect after the supreme court last month overturned its landmark Roe v Wade decision that had granted federal abortion rights since 1973.
On Friday, Biden signed an executive order which he said would protect access to medication abortion and emergency contraception, and it aims to educate people on protecting their personal data to prevent “extremist governors” from accessing confidential health data on phones.
As Democrats scramble to respond to the US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar wrote to the tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg regarding reports that Facebook and Instagram are “censoring posts” that contain information about how to legally obtain abortion services.
Associated Press reported in June that, in the wake of the Roe v Wade decision, Facebook and Instagram had begun removing posts that offered “abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them”.
In their letter, Warren and Klobuchar said: “It is more important than ever that social media platforms not censor truthful posts about abortion, particularly as people across the country turn to online communities to discuss and find information about reproductive rights.”
Democrats plan to hold votes this week on legislation that would preserve abortion access, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, but with a divided Senate, any laws guaranteeing abortion are expected to fail.
Becerra said in his letter to medical providers: “If a physician believes that a pregnant patient presenting at an emergency department, including certain labor and 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.”
A majority of Americans believe access to abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and last week a Pew Research poll found that 57% of Americans oppose the supreme court’s elimination of nationwide abortion rights.
