Appeals Court Denies Federal Government From Forcing Abortions

LUBBOCK, TX – The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower district court ruling this week that the Biden administration cannot use a federal emergency medical treatment law to force Texas hospitals and doctors to perform abortions.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires hospitals to provide necessary emergency care to pregnant women without discrimination, including an inability to pay for treatment. However, in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Secretary Xavier Becerra of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued policy guidance to hospitals stating that EMTALA preempts state abortion laws under certain conditions and that physicians “must” perform an abortion if they feel it is “necessary” to resolve an emergency medical condition.

In Texas v. Becerra, the three-judge appeals court panel unanimously rejected the Biden Administration’s EMTALA policy guidance calling it “unlawful” and determined “it must be set aside.” The Appeals Court upheld a lower court’s injunction striking down the guidance.

Authoring the ruling, Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt determined that EMTALA does not discard the unborn child during a life-threatening medical emergency, and he noted that the law requires hospitals to “stabilize both the pregnant woman and her unborn child.”

Judge Engelhardt wrote, “We agree with the district court that EMTALA does not provide an unqualified right for the pregnant mother to abort her child especially when EMTALA imposes equal stabilization obligations. The question before the Court is whether EMTALA, according to HHS’s Guidance, mandates physicians to provide abortions when that is the necessary stabilizing treatment for an emergency medical condition. It does not.”

“EMTALA does not mandate medical treatments, let alone abortion care, nor does it preempt Texas law,” stated Judge Engelhardt.

The state of Texas, along with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and the Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and Christian Medical & Dental Associations challenged Secretary Becerra stating his guidance would have conflicted with Texas’ near total abortion ban and forcibly turned emergency rooms into abortion centers. 

On January 3, 2024, AAPLOG called the guidance “an abuse,” and further stated on their website, “Induced abortion, the sole purpose of which is to end the life of our preborn patient, is not healthcare, and our members regularly treat serious pregnancy complications without it, which is entirely possible to do under existing Texas law.”

In August 2022 at the lower district court level, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix originally ruled that Secretary Becerra’s guidance interpreted EMTALA in a “new” way and went “well beyond EMTALA’s text,” which was “silent on abortion.” Judge Hendrix stated that the guidance also created potential to “conflict with state law,” and as a result, he ruled the guidance was “unauthorized.”

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The Appeals Court was right to uphold the decision to deny the Biden administration’s back door attempt to advance its pro-death agenda. Hospitals are committed to saving life, so to say this federal law requires physicians to perform abortions is a delusion. The government has no authority to force abortions and has no business telling doctors how to treat their patients.”

Support Canada Free Press

VIEW Comments