5CA: When Congress required states to allow people to have access to emergency medical care, they didn’t mean “women”
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Add the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986 to the Neoconfederate Nullification Machine:
Emergency room doctors in Texas are not required to perform emergency abortions despite federal guidance that requires hospitals to offer stabilizing care, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a ruling that sided with the State of Texas, which had sued the Biden administration, arguing that the federal guidance issued in 2022 was an overstep that would “force abortions.”
The appeal was heard by Judge Leslie H. Southwick, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, and judges Kurt Engelhardt and Cory Wilson, who were appointed by President Donald Trump.
Judge Engelhardt wrote that the federal guidance does not mandate physicians to provide emergency abortions, adding that the guidance “does not mandate any specific type of medical treatment, let alone abortion.”
“Because Congress did not specify what medical treatment was necessary to stabilize a patient facing imminent harm or death, states can forbid any particular stabilizing tretment” is not only not legal reasoning — anything resembling an attempt to fairly contrue the statute Congress passed or the executive order clarifying it — it cannot really be described as “reasoning” at all.
The analytical leap from “EMTALA doesn’t require specific medical procedures” to “EMTALA doesn’t preempt state laws that *ban* procedures doctors *want* and *need* to perform to stabilize emergency patients” is only possible in the Fifth Circuit.— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) January 2, 2024
Again, exceptions to abortion bans are not intended to actually shield doctors or patents from consequences if they perform or obtain a medically necessary abortion; they’re just symbolic fake-gestures at moderation to make the cyanide go down a little easier.