Trump reverses Biden-era rule on emergency abortions

ISTANBUL

The US government announced Tuesday it has reversed a rule from the Biden administration that required hospitals to provide emergency abortions to pregnant women facing serious health risks, even in states with abortion bans or restrictions.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, said the rule no longer reflects the policy of President Donald Trump’s administration.

The reversal comes after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, a landmark decision that had federally protected the right to abortion.

Following that ruling, the Biden administration relied on the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which obligates federally funded hospitals to treat or stabilize emergency patients, to support access to medically necessary abortions.

While EMTALA does not explicitly mention abortion, successive administrations since President George W. Bush have interpreted it to include emergency abortions when needed to protect the health or life of the patient.

Lawrence O. Gostin, a health law expert and professor at Georgetown University, told The New York Times that the Trump administration’s decision “basically gives a bright green light to hospitals in red states to turn away pregnant women who are in peril.”

Although the Trump administration did not explicitly authorize hospitals to deny emergency abortions, it stated only that hospitals remain bound by federal emergency care laws, without clarifying whether that includes abortion access.

Experts, including Gostin, warn that this ambiguous policy may discourage physicians from performing emergency abortions in states with restrictions, potentially endangering pregnant women.

Since Roe was overturned, “uncertainty and confusion” have led physicians to hesitate, and “the more unwilling physicians are to intervene, the more risk there is in pregnancy,” said Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California-Davis and a historian of the American abortion debate.

“This is not just withdrawing what the Biden administration did,” she added, “It’s creating a lot of unanswered questions about what hospitals are supposed to do going forward. So more confusion means more risk.”