California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, co-led a multi-state coalition on Tuesday in a legal fight to protect Americans' access to abortion during life-threatening medical emergencies.
In an amicus brief, the coalition supported the Biden administration’s defense of its Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) guidance, which reaffirms hospital obligations by requiring physicians nationwide to perform abortions when necessary in emergency situations.
In July 2022, Texas filed a lawsuit challenging EMTALA's guidance, and in August 2022, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas barred the guidance from being enforced in Texas.
In response, California and the coalition wrote in their amicus brief that the district court's ruling, if upheld, would not only endanger Texas patients but would also have serious repercussions on health care systems in other states.
"Emergency treatment can mean the difference between life and death for a patient," Bonta said.
“Those seeking to exclude abortion from emergency medical care are putting the lives of countless patients at risk. That is why I stand with my coalition partners in urging the Fifth Circuit to reverse the Texas court’s decision and secure critical emergency medical care for all. California will not stand idly by as anti-choice states like Texas trample on the rights and protections that allow people to live healthy, safe lives,” she added.
Every hospital in the United States that operates an emergency department and participates in Medicare is subject to EMTALA. Under the law, emergency rooms are required to provide all patients who have an emergency medical condition with the treatment necessary to save their lives.
In June 2022, the Biden administration issued guidance reaffirming hospitals’ obligation to provide abortion services when necessary to stabilize a patient experiencing an emergency medical condition.
In a statement, the California Attorney General's Office said that the district court ruling blocking the implementation of the EMTALA guidance in Texas has already put the lives of multiple patients at risk by plunging providers into a climate of uncertainty and fear about the legal and criminal repercussions they may face for performing abortions on patients in emergency situations.
In Texas, for example, a pregnant woman who suffered a miscarriage, she said, was forced to carry a dead fetus for two weeks because of her providers' fears of violating the law in the state.
Another Texas woman who went into premature labor at 18 weeks was forced to wait until she was too weak to walk, had a 103-degree fever and contracted sepsis, a life-threatening medical emergency, before her doctors agreed she was sick enough to legally end her pregnancy.
On March 10, 2023, the Biden Administration filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, asking it to overturn the Texas district court's ruling.
The amicus brief was led by Attorney General Bonta and New York Attorney General Letitia James. They were joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington.
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