The abortion extremism of the Biden administration will be on full display this week as President Joe Biden’s lawyers try to convince our nation’s highest court that a 38-year-old federal law requiring hospital emergency rooms to stabilize sick patients also includes an abortion mandate.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act is the latest vehicle being used by Biden and the abortion lobby to overturn pro-life state laws and push for unrestricted abortions. EMTALA focuses on ensuring that patients who are in need receive care, and it extends that life-saving care to both a woman and her unborn child. It is an instance where the “unborn child” is explicitly recognized in federal code.
Despite EMTALA requiring stabilizing care for both a woman and her an unborn baby, the Biden administration is now adopting a radical interpretation of the law that mandates abortion, even if state law precludes it. The Biden administration’s distorted guidance on EMTALA would also require emergency room personnel to perform abortions in certain circumstances. Biden’s reinterpretation removes the words “unborn child” altogether, ignoring the words on the page and arguing that the law only applies to born persons.
It’s alarming but not surprising that the abortion lobby and the Biden administration would pursue this distorted reading of the law. For nearly 50 years, Roe v. Wade allowed a flawed interpretation of the Constitution to permit the killing of more than 64 million unborn children.
With the egregious Roe decision now corrected, Biden is looking for a replacement in federal law, part of his “whole-of-government” push to enshrine abortion on demand nationally. EMTALA is his answer. However, by requiring abortion as “stabilizing care,” the Biden administration’s interpretation of EMTALA would create a standard that did not even exist under Roe.
Armed with this new radical interpretation of federal law, the Biden administration sued the state of Idaho over its pro-life law, which protects the lives of both unborn children and their mothers. The state’s “Defense of Life Act” limits only elective induced abortions, and it includes exceptions in cases of rape or incest.
Idaho’s law also has a clear exception in the rare and heartbreaking circumstance when an abortion is needed to save the life of a pregnant woman. The law is consistent with EMTALA because it limits only elective abortions.
Idaho’s law is one of many pro-life laws across the country that provide life-saving care for pregnant women while also protecting the unborn child, yet the Biden administration has wrongly claimed that the law does not have exceptions for medical emergencies. This is false and dangerous for women.
All states with life-affirming laws, including Idaho, allow doctors to act when faced with medical emergencies.
The lawsuit involving Idaho now before the Supreme Court shows the extent of the Biden administration’s unhealthy obsession with abortion, even if it means spreading misinformation and lies about women’s health. It also shows that the underlying motive for the litigation is not about women’s health because Idaho and all other states already protect the lives of pregnant women. The Biden administration’s ultimate goal is to mandate abortion.
If Biden prevails before the Supreme Court, he will have successfully reinterpreted federal law to require abortion, not just in Idaho but nationwide. The far-reaching consequences could undermine numerous state laws that protect human life and recognize the dignity of unborn children.
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It would radically change the practice of medicine in the emergency room: Currently, doctors see and treat two patients, but the Biden interpretation would erase the unborn child from the equation. Such a ruling would also embolden Biden to reinterpret any number of federal laws to fit his extreme agenda. Abortion would just be the beginning.
For decades, EMTALA has fully and clearly articulated an understanding that both mother and unborn child are patients deserving care. EMTALA has never mandated abortion, and the Supreme Court must now ask itself if this new, twisted interpretation of federal law can be used to preempt state laws that protect life and to enact an extreme abortion mandate on the public. The answer should be an emphatic “no.”
Katie Daniel is the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
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