Court: Texas doctors don’t need to perform emergency abortions

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that Texas hospitals and doctors are not obligated to perform abortions under a long-standing national emergency-care law, dealing a blow to the White House’s strategy to ensure access to the procedure after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.

The federal law “does not mandate any specific type of medical treatment, let alone abortion,” the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit concluded, faulting the Biden administration’s interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA. The law “does not govern the practice of medicine,” the court added.

The three-judge panel also faulted the Biden administration’s process of issuing its emergency-care guidance, saying that federal officials did not go through the proper rulemaking process when the administration instructed health care providers that they were protected by EMTALA if they believed an abortion to be medically necessary. The panel further said that the federal emergency-care law did not “directly conflict” with a near- total abortion ban in effect in Texas, which was written by the state’s Republican legislators and includes exceptions for medical emergencies.

The White House and federal health officials have invoked EMTALA — the 1986 law that requires hospitals and physicians to treat emergency medical conditions or risk fines, civil lawsuits and being blacklisted from federal health programs — in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that overturned the national right to abortion and led to about two dozen state bans on the procedure. The Biden administration is now engaged in several lawsuits that are expected to set precedent over whether the emergency- care law applies to abortion access, including the Texas case.

The Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday night referred questions to the White House, which declined to comment.

Abortion rights advocates in Texas and across the country decried the ruling, which they said signaled a disregard for women in life-threatening pregnancy situations. They also criticized the 5th Circuit, which is widely seen as one of the most conservative courts in the country. Its panels have repeatedly sided with antiabortion advocates.