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Trump administration revokes guidance requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions

apnews.com Trump administration revokes guidance requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions

The Trump administration has announced that it is revoking guidance to the nation’s hospitals that directed them to provide emergency abortions to women when they are necessary to stabilize their medical condition.

Trump administration revokes guidance requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions

That guidance was issued to hospitals in 2022, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upended national abortion rights in the U.S. It was an effort by the Biden administration to preserve abortion access for extreme cases in which women were experiencing medical emergencies and needed an abortion to prevent organ loss or severe hemorrhaging, among other serious complications.

The Biden administration had argued that hospitals — including ones in states with near-total bans — needed to provide emergency abortions under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. That law requires emergency rooms that receive Medicare dollars to provide an exam and stabilizing treatment for all patients. Nearly all emergency rooms in the U.S. rely on Medicare funds.

“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.

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