Reproductive Equity Now Statement in Advance of Oral Arguments in Case Challenging EMTALA
The United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case challenging emergency room doctors’ ability to provide life-saving abortion care in banned states
BOSTON (April 23, 2024) – Tomorrow, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the cases of Idaho v. United States & Moyle v. United States, two consolidated cases challenging provisions in the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a nearly 40-year-old federal law that requires Medicare-funded hospital emergency departments to provide emergency care to save the life or health of a patient. Idaho is arguing that its state abortion ban, which went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, supersedes EMTALA and would prohibit Idaho's emergency room doctors from offering life-saving or stabilizing abortion care in the case of an emergency. Idaho’s abortion ban contains only narrow exceptions and makes it a felony for physicians to provide abortions except to save the life (but not the health) of the pregnant person.
“This attempt by far-right, anti-abortion extremists to usurp EMTALA and threaten the lives of pregnant people has put the anti-abortion movement’s cruelty on full display. Abortion and emergency labor care are life-saving, life-affirming forms of health care,” said Rebecca Hart Holder, President of Reproductive Equity Now. “Attempts to undercut EMTALA put doctors right in the path of criminalization by removing their ability to use their best medical judgment when caring for their patients. Removing the protections of EMTALA will lead to more pregnant people dying. It’s that simple.
“This case is yet another attempt by anti-abortion extremists to weaponize ‘fetal personhood,’ which we know they will use to try to ban abortion in all 50 states,” Hart Holder continued. “Anti-abortion extremists are once again using the courts as political actors to push their anti-abortion, anti-science, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-women agenda. They are continuing to chip away at protections for abortion, including life-saving abortion care, and we know they will not stop until they ban reproductive health care nationwide. We cannot be complacent to these attacks on our autonomy and health care.”
Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the enforcement of Idaho’s extreme abortion ban, the state has lost one-fifth of its practicing OB/GYNs, leaving maternity care deserts hundreds of miles wide across the state. The state is left with one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country.
In the wake of the Dobbs decision, one in three women live in states with no abortion access. In states with strict abortion bans, pregnant people are already being turned away from receiving emergency care when they are experiencing medical duress related to pregnancy. The Biden Administration affirmed in 2022 that EMTALA protects physicians and health institutions from prosecution when providing labor and abortion care to patients experiencing medical complications. This guidance extends to both situations where the continued life of the pregnant patient is at risk and situations where the continued health of the pregnant patient is at risk. Physicians retain the right of refusal even under EMTALA.
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