Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires doctors in emergency rooms to kill unborn babies.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that EMTALA does not require ER doctors to do this. The law requires emergency rooms to provide treatment to people regardless of their ability to pay.
President Joe Biden attempted to modify the law, which lies within the authority of the U.S. Congress, not the chief executive. He issued an executive order “securing access” to abortion in states that banned abortion after the high court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) that the Constitution did not confer a right to abortion, overturning Roe v. Wade (1972) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).
The Biden administration ordered these doctors to provide stabilizing care “including abortion, if that care is necessary to stabilize their emergency medical condition…”
The state of Texas and groups of medical professionals filed a lawsuit to block the order. A lower court ruled that EMTALA does not require emergency room doctors to kill unborn babies, and the Fifth Circuit agreed.
The court stated that EMTALA “does not provide an unqualified right for the pregnant mother to abort her child especially when EMTALA imposes equal stabilization obligations.”
But the ruling applied to states in the Fifth Circuit. Idaho’s attorney general asked the Supreme Court to hear his state’s case after the U.S. Department of Justice sued Idaho over its trigger law. The Biden administration claimed that the law violates EMTALA. From Live Action News:
“A preliminary injunction was placed against the law by U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Winmill’s injunction, and then reinstated the stay one month later until a full judicial appeal can be heard. Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador then asked the Supreme Court to review the issue.”
States that limit abortion allow it if the pregnant woman’s life is in danger, and doctors get to make that decision, not Joe Biden.
