The Trump administration rescinded the guidance issued by the Biden administration to require emergency room doctors to perform abortions.
In 1986, Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, to address the problem of hospitals that refuse to treat indigent patients in emergency rooms.
The law requires hospital emergency departments that accept Medicaid funds either to provide available treatment required to “stabilize” a patient’s emergency medical condition or transfer that patient to another medical facility.
But under the Biden administration, abortion activists interpreted the act as a nationwide abortion mandate, even though every state pro-life law already contains a life-of-the-mother exception.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid under President Donald Trump will continue to enforce the act to protect women facing emergency medical conditions that place the woman or her baby’s life in jeopardy.
However, CMS will “work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration’s actions.”
Dr. Ingrid Skop, a Texas obstetrician-gynecologist and vice president and director of medical affairs at Charlotte Lozier Institute, said the previous administration’s effort to use the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act to promote abortion was never necessary.
“This coercive effort by the prior administration to subvert existing laws to promote abortion was never necessary, as [the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act] has never been confusing for me or my obstetric peers. Every state pro-life law already permitted physicians to intervene immediately in a pregnancy emergency to protect a woman’s life. Although I do not perform elective abortions, I have always been able to provide quality care in obstetric emergencies, seeking to preserve the lives of both mother and child.”
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
