An Austin-Travis County EMS unit parked near a hospital's emergency entrance in Austin on July 7, 2020., The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.For almost 40 years, American hospitals have operated under a federal law that says they must treat and stabilize any patient experiencing a medical emergency.
“Nobody was thinking about EMTALA,” when Roe v. Wade was overturned, said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor emerita at the Milken School of Public Health at the George Washington University. “They pushed her legs together, started an IV, and sent her to Parkland,” he said. “She was crowning—the baby was coming any minute. She delivered in the hallway at Parkland.”
A pregnant woman who is having contractions qualifies as having an emergency medical condition if there isn’t enough time to safely transfer her or if transferring her would threaten her or the pregnancy. “When a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life of the pregnant person — or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition — that state law is preempted.”
The distinction is in the details. EMTALA and Texas’ abortion exceptions create a Venn diagram of emergency pregnancy care: EMTALA mandates care when there is a risk that a patient’s health could be in jeopardy. Texas’ law requires a “life-threatening” condition that poses a “risk of death” before a doctor can act.
Almost two years under Texas’ near-total abortion ban has shown the fear and confusion doctors face when deciding whether it’s legally safe to terminate a pregnancy. Dozens of women have come forward with stories of being denied medical care for their pregnancy complications by doctors too scared to act.
HHS appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. At the November hearing, Department of Justice lawyer McKaye Neumeister said while Texas’ laws may not prohibit performing abortions in certain circumstances, EMTALA was one of the only ways the federal government could “ensure that the hospitals are following their obligations in offering the care that’s required.”
Winmill pointed to the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which “says state law must yield to federal law when it’s impossible to comply with both.”
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