Following President Joe Biden’s executive order on abortion last week, the Department of Health and Human Services released new guidance directing Medicare hospitals to provide abortions when necessary to protect “the health or life of the pregnant person,” even if prohibited by state law.
The announcement assured that such services are protected under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. Where state law does not have a health exception, or “draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition,” it is to be preempted.
“Under the law, no matter where you live, women have the right to emergency care — including abortion care,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, adding that the HHS “expect[s] providers to continue offering these services.”
“We will continue to leverage all available resources at HHS to make sure women can access the life-saving care they need,” Becerra continued.
The act’s emergency medical condition definition refers to “a condition that is likely or certain to become emergent without stabilizing treatment.” Examples include “ectopic pregnancy, complications of pregnancy loss, or emergent hypertensive disorders, such as preeclampsia with severe features.”
The idea of “emergency” abortions is misleading. Examples provided by the HHS are not classified as abortions under state laws. The Mississippi Gestational Age Act, for example, explicitly notes that they are not included in the definition.
Abortion is defined under Mississippi law as terminating a pregnancy “for reasons other than to increase the probability of a live birth, to preserve the life or health of the unborn human being, to terminate an ectopic pregnancy, or to remove a dead unborn human being.”
Even Oklahoma’s stricter law banning abortion from conception says an act is not an abortion when performed with the purpose to “remove a dead unborn child caused by spontaneous abortion, or remove an ectopic pregnancy.”
Miscarriage treatment and ectopic pregnancies do not intentionally seek to take the life of the child. Rather, they seek to protect the mother and relocate the already dead or dying fetus.
With no state prohibiting treatment for ectopic pregnancy, the HHS declaration is entirely unnecessary and functions only to muddy the waters further with the lie that abortion bans endanger women’s lives. The confusion is intentional. It’s not hard to see the act potentially being used as cover for abortions that do not legitimately qualify as emergencies.
At the direction of Biden, the HHS has already put other plans in place to promote abortion post-Roe, such as increasing access to medication abortion. The department also launched reproductiverights.gov, essentially a government-sponsored pro-abortion propaganda page promoting the “right” to abortion services and providing resources for obtaining one.
Democrats are so set on defending abortion that they will shamelessly abuse the power of the executive office and government agencies to meet that end.
Katelynn Richardson is a summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow.
