Tipsheet

Pro-Lifers Secure Victory After Appeals Court Rules Biden Can't Force ER Doctors to Perform Abortions

Sarah Arnold
Sarah Arnold  |  January 04, 2024 8:30 PM

Pro-Lifers were handed a victory this week after an appeals court ruled the Biden Administration can’t force emergency doctors to perform abortions. 

A panel of federal appellate judges of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the federal government cannot impose guidance forcing Texas doctors to perform abortions on emergency room patients. 

A 1986 federal law required ER doctors to perform an abortion when necessary as part of stabilizing treatment for an emergency medical condition in patients. However, a lawsuit originated from a guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in July 2022 that forced doctors in states such as Texas to comply with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and two pro-life organizations— the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations— argued that the Biden Administration’s guidance on the act was an abuse of its executive’s authority.

“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,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruling stated. “We, therefore, decline to expand the scope of EMTALA.”

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The three-judge panel — all appointed by Republican presidents— stated that the EMTALA could not mandate any medical treatment, let alone abortion care. 

“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 panel continued. 

Texas has outlawed abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The state’s current abortion law prohibits abortion in nearly all cases, except for when the mother’s life is in danger or if the pregnancy is causing a “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”