Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), is suing Biden Administration over an executive order that guarantees an abortion in an emergency to any patient who needs one, regardless of any restrictions in the state.
Texas has strict restrictions on abortion. under a restrictive 1925 law that recently went into effectThe procedure is still allowed in the state for emergency lifesaving care. However, Paxton’s lawsuit could pave the way for Texas and other states to deny such care to people whose pregnancies are putting their lives at risk.
Paxton defended his lawsuit, claiming that President Joe Biden’s executive orders this month inappropriately extended certain aspects of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Acts.
Biden’s order instructed several executive branch departments, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to revise rules in order to expand access to abortion services. HHS updated its understanding of EMTALA regarding abortion coverage, noting that “a physician’s professional and legal duty to provide stabilizing medical treatment to a patient who…is found to have an emergency medical condition preempts any directly conflicting state law or mandate that might otherwise prohibit or prevent such treatment,” including if “abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition.”
HHS stated that EMTALA preempts any state law regarding abortion coverage in cases where the lives of the pregnant woman are at risk. Every medical facility receiving Medicare or Medicaid funding must enforce the rule.
Paxton claims that the changes flout the recent Supreme Court ruling that upended abortion rights “by having [Biden’s] appointed bureaucrats mandate that hospitals and emergency medicine physicians must perform abortions.” He further claims, within his lawsuit, that the new guidance will “coerce healthcare providers to supply abortions outside the allowable scope under the Hyde Amendment” — even though that legislative amendment, which limits federal spending for abortion services, does make exceptions for rape, incest or the safety of the patient.
The White House denounced Paxton’s lawsuit as an attempt to limit the options of someone with a life-threatening pregnancy.
“The Texas Attorney General’s lawsuit is yet another example of an extreme and radical Republican elected official,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday. “It is unthinkable that this public official would sue to block women from receiving life-saving care in emergency rooms, a right protected under U.S. law.”
Others also deplored the lawsuit brought forward Paxton.
“EMTALA was not designed specifically for abortion access, or miscarriage management,” health policy expert Lawrence Gostin said in a statementTo The New York Times. “But it absolutely includes both of them.”
The HHS guidance is on “solid legal footing,” added Gostin, who has advised the administration in the past.
Paxton “has no integrity and has made it clear that he sees women’s lives as disposable,” said Rochelle Garza, the Democratic Party’s nominee for Texas attorney general and Paxton’s main opponent in this November’s race. “Suing the Biden administration to stop medical exceptions for abortions is just the latest example of his extremist agenda.”
Social media doctors also voiced their opposition to the lawsuit.
“If you’re an ER doc anywhere in this country, and anyone comes in with a medical emergency, you treat them,” said Rob Davidson, an ER physician and executive director of Committee to Protect Health Care. “You do it because of EMTALA and the oath you took. Ken Paxton (TX), or [Supreme Court Justice] Samuel Alito can do a damn thing about that.”
