Trump did not outlaw emergency abortion: Why abortion activists can put the Handmaid’s Tale cloaks away



The Trump administration’s reversal of a Biden-era policy regarding hospitals being required to perform emergency abortions has abortion activists up in arms — despite there actually being no threat to pregnant women who need emergency care.

“You have probably seen headlines going around, especially on Instagram, saying that Trump is now letting hospitals allow women to die, women who need these life-saving abortions we hear are now going to bleed out and die because of Trump’s draconian and cruel anti-abortion policies,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey says on “Relatable.”

“It is almost always the case when it comes to pro-abortion propaganda that the story that you are reading, that those little pro-abortion influencers and accounts are pushing, that it’s just not true,” she continues.


The policy in question is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act that was passed in 1986 and requires hospitals to provide necessary emergency care, including for pregnant women, to stabilize serious medical conditions.

The law’s initial intent was to ensure patient access to emergency medical care and to prevent the practice of “patient dumping,” which is when patients are transferred from private to public hospitals without considering their medical condition or stability for transfers.

The Biden administration issued a guidance on this law in 2022 that interpreted EMTALA as requiring hospitals to perform abortions in emergency rooms, even in states with pro-life laws.

“So you can see, if you’re familiar at all with how the left interprets these kind of health care laws, you can see the problem right away, because how the left interprets the health or life of the mother or the stability of the mother, is not that the woman’s life actually has to be at risk,” Stuckey explains.

“They refer to a Supreme Court case called Doe vs. Bolton, where health and life of the mother is defined as not only the physical health of the mother, but the mental health of the mother, the financial situation of the mother, the familial circumstances of the mother,” she continues.

“So it was actually the Biden administration that was infringing upon people’s rights here, it’s not the Trump administration,” she adds.

The Trump administration rescinded this 2022 guidance in a statement arguing it wrongly turned emergency rooms into abortion clinics by forcing doctors to perform elective abortions.

“Which is true, because a woman could come in and say, ‘I have to have an abortion, I don’t feel stable, or I’m not feeling good or whatever,’ and instead of a doctor saying, ‘We can help you in different ways,’ or ‘Here’s where you need to go, let me give you other resources,’ they would be required by the Biden administration to perform an abortion,” Stuckey explains.

“So the Trump administration’s policy clarifies that EMTALA does not mandate abortions beyond what is necessary for emergency care, aligning with the law’s intent to protect both the mother and the unborn child,” she adds.

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On August 24, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill temporarily blocked part of Idaho's law banning most abortions. The preliminary injunction granted by Winmill — who was nominated by former President Bill Clinton — prevents the enforcement of Idaho's law when it conflicts with the 1986 federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. The EMTALA purportedly ensures that patients are given adequate emergency medical care. The EMTALA applies specifically to hospitals and physicians that participate in Medicare.

Idaho's partial ban, which goes into effect today, will apply to all abortions but those performed during medical emergencies, and those already permitted under the state's law.

The decision comes as a result of the lawsuit filed on August 2 by the Department of Justice, which alleged that the state's prohibition of most abortions had "extremely narrow" exceptions and conflicted with the EMTALA.

Winmill agreed with the DOJ, arguing that Idaho's criminal abortion statute (Code 18-622) "stands as a clear obstacle to what Congress was attempting to accomplish with EMTLA" and "will undoubtedly deter physicians from providing abortions in some emergency situations."

Under the EMTALA, an "emergency medical condition" includes: "a medical condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity ... such that the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected to result in" placing the health of the individual in "serious jeopardy," "serious impairment to bodily functions," or "serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part."

The Department of Health and Human Services recently issued new "clarifying guidance" on the EMTALA, following President Joe Biden's July 8 executive order on reproductive health. The purpose of the guidance was to reaffirm "that [the EMTALA] protects providers when offering legally-mandated, life- or health-saving abortion services in emergency situations."

The guidance stipulates that if a pregnant woman "presenting at an emergency department is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA, and that abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment."

On the matter of enforcement, the guidance specifies that any state actions against a physician who performs an abortion "in order to stabilize an emergency medical condition" would be pre-empted by the federal EMTALA statute.

Whereas Idaho's criminal abortion statute (Code 18-622) permits abortions in emergencies where the killing of the child is regarded as lifesaving for the mother (as well as in cases of rape or incest), the language of the EMTALA, as taken up in HHS' new guidance, requires abortions also be permitted in instances where they would be considered "health-saving."

Winmill suggested that abortions that are not regarded as lifesaving in one moment may prove lifesaving moments later; that "it is not always possible for a physician to know whether treatment for any particular condition, at any particular moment in time, is 'necessary to prevent the death' of the pregnant patient."

Winmill also claimed that Idaho's law would serve as a deterrent to the provision of abortions, suggesting that physicians might be precluded from or delayed in following the letter of the EMTALA law if apprehensive about running afoul of the state's criminal abortion statute. "Idaho's criminal abortion law is to curb abortion as a form of medical care," he wrote, thereby decreasing "the overall availability of emergency abortion care."

As a result of this ruling, Idaho is barred from legally, professionally, or financially penalizing any medical provider or hospital for performing emergency abortions that aren't necessarily lifesaving.

This ruling came one day after U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix granted Texas a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the EMTALA as interpreted in HHS' July guidance.