The Biden administration ordered doctors and other healthcare providers to continue to provide abortions to mothers regardless of anti-abortion laws in the state.
According to the new order from the Department of Health and Human Services, abortions will be protected under federal law regardless of the state they are performed in. The only contingency to this protection is that the provider must establish that the mother’s life is at risk.
More specifically, doctors and hospitals must follow the guidelines of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) in determining the risk of the pregnancy, and must find that abortion is a “stabilizing treatment” for the condition.
The official statement from Biden’s medical administrators read, “HHS to Providers: If an abortion is necessary to save a pregnant patient’s life or prevent serious jeopardy to the patient’s health, the federal laws protecting emergency care supersede any state law prohibiting abortion.”
HHS said in a statement on the new guidance that some of the protected conditions include “ectopic pregnancy, complications of pregnancy loss, or emergent hypertensive disorders, such as preeclampsia with severe features.”
The department also clarified that the guidance does not create any new policies, but instead reminds doctors of their responsibility to protect the lives of their patients under federal law. They hope that by issuing it, it will give abortion providers an extra layer of protection while performing the operation in states that have banned it.
Over the weekend President Biden also teased potentially declaring the abortion bans in multiple states as a nationwide “medical emergency”. In theory this could free up federal resources and even allow them to use federal lands to set up makeshift abortion tents in anti-abortion states.
The reactions from the left began when the US Supreme Court reversed the decades old abortions protections established under Roe v Wade. Do you think Biden’s new decisions are legal? Do you support the HHS protecting doctors who perform “life saving” abortions or are they overstepping their bounds?
