Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court sent Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States back to a lower court, reinstating an injunction on Idaho’s Defense of Life Act. This means that should an “emergency abortion” become absolutely necessary to protect a pregnant woman in any of the very narrow possible circumstances where Idaho’s law conflicts with the federal EMTALA rules, doctors in Idaho must provide that “emergency abortion” as a “stabilizing treatment.” A press release quote from Idaho AG Raúl Labrador noted:
The Biden administration’s concession that EMTALA will rarely override Idaho’s law caused the Supreme Court to ask the 9th Circuit for review in light of the federal government’s change in position. Justice Barrett wrote, those concessions mean that Idaho’s Defense of Life Act ‘remains almost entirely intact.’ The 9th Circuit’s decision should be easy. As Justice Alito explained well: the Biden administration’s ‘preemption theory is plainly unsound.’
And yet, after the decision, the Biden HHS issued a letter, telling emergency room doctors that they must commit abortions on women in emergencies, as if the administration didn’t already concede to the Court that EMTALA would rarely override Idaho’s law. So, is the Biden administration simply trying to pretend 1) that Idaho’s law is not left “almost entirely intact,” and 2) as if doctors in pro-life states aren’t already legally allowed to do so-called “emergency abortions”?
You be the judge.
Is induced abortion ever the standard of care?
In a letter to doctor and hospital associations obtained by the Associated Press, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Director Chiquita Brooks-LaSure told them they have a legal obligation to commit abortions as a stabilizing treatment during emergencies.
“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.”
Here’s the thing: induced abortion is not the standard of care for pregnancy emergencies. Not PPROM, not preeclampsia, not placenta accreta, not placenta percreta, not placenta increta, not placenta previa, and so on (see more information at links provided). While some of these conditions may warrant early delivery of the baby, this is not remotely the same as intentionally killing the preborn child. Nowhere is induced abortion listed as a treatment for any of these conditions. Therefore, if induced abortion is not the standard of care for pregnancy complications or conditions, then why wouldn’t a medical provider provide whatever is the standard of care for such conditions?
While induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of a preborn human being — is not medically necessary to end a pregnancy and save the mother’s life, state pro-life laws provide exceptions for abortion in emergency situations. When a pregnancy must end (such as in the case of ectopic pregnancy), doctors can provide women with appropriate treatment, whether that be surgery to remove the fallopian tube and embryo during an ectopic pregnancy (which if untreated will be fatal to the mother), or preterm delivery of the child in other circumstances. With these procedures, the unintended death of the child may result — but this is fundamentally different from intentionally killing the child when it is unnecessary to do so.
“Completely baseless”
The Associated Press stated (emphasis added):
But enforcement in Texas, the country’s most populous state with a strict six-week abortion ban, will still be on hold because of a lower court ruling.
The letter is the Biden administration’s latest attempt to raise awareness about a 40-year-old federal law that requires almost all emergency rooms — any that receive Medicare dollars — to provide stabilizing treatment for patients in a medical emergency. When hospitals turn away patients or refuse to provide that care, they are subject to federal investigations, hefty fines and loss of Medicare funding.
The Texas Alliance for Life responded to the Biden HHS letter in a press release, saying that the Biden administration “falsely suggests that Idaho and other state pro-life laws fail to protect women facing life-threatening emergencies during pregnancy.”
It continued, “This is untrue. 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.”
Regardless, the Biden administration’s assertions that doctors in pro-life states are turning away pregnant women in emergency situations are inaccurate, and Texas has the statistics to prove it.
Texas Alliance for Life released the latest Texas Health and Human Services Commission report on “life-saving abortions each month since Dobbs” in the state. The report showed that from January 2022 through June 24, 2022, the day Roe v. Wade was overturned, there were 14 abortions carried out for “medical-necessity (life/health) exceptions” in Texas. That’s an average of 2.6 a month. After the fall of Roe and the enactment of the state’s Human Life Protection Act on August 25, 2022, the state shows an average of 4.8 such abortions each month, from September 2022 through February 2024.
“Texas’ laws are saving unborn babies from abortion and protecting women’s lives in rare and tragic cases when pregnancy endangers their lives or health,” said Amy O’Donnell, Texas Alliance for Life’s Communications Director. “The latest reports show claims by critics and naysayers to the contrary are completely baseless.”
Texas Alliance for Life noted that no doctor has faced prosecution, been sanctioned by the Texas Medical Board, or been sued by the Attorney General for these emergency procedures. In addition, no pregnant woman has lost her life because of the state’s pro-life laws.
“The Texas Supreme Court, in Texas v. Zurawski, recently determined
