WASHINGTON – A resolution introduced by Congressional Democrats would make clear that U.S. emergency rooms need to provide emergency abortions when a woman's health or life is at risk, despite strict state abortion bans.
Legislators cited a report by The Associated Press that found more than 100 pregnant women have been denied care since 2022 in introducing the two-page proposal on Thursday.
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“It's an outrage,” Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat of New Jersey who introduced the House resolution, said of the AP's findings. “Lives are at risk and despite clear federal law and additional guidance from the Biden administration, states across the country are refusing to treat pregnant women in emergencies.”
The resolution has little chance of passing a Republican-controlled House in an election year. Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington announced on social media that she would introduce a Senate version of the resolution next week.
Federal law requires that patients who show up at emergency rooms receive stabilizing treatment for medical emergencies. But since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national right to an abortion and states enacted strict abortion bans, confusion and conflict have emerged when pregnant women have sought help in emergency rooms in states like Texas, Idaho and Florida.
Women suffering from preterm rupture of membranes or dangerous ectopic pregnancies, for example, have been sent home without treatment or, in the worst cases, left to miscarry in public bathrooms.
The U.S. Supreme Court was given the chance to settle the debate of whether the federal law applies to emergency abortions earlier this year but failed to do so. Instead, the conservative majority court issued a narrow order that temporarily allows doctors in Idaho to perform emergency abortions, despite the state's abortion restrictions, and sent the case back to the lower courts.
Texas, meanwhile, is suing the Biden administration over its guidance around the law that says emergency rooms must perform abortions if a woman's health or life is at risk. The case could also end up before the Supreme Court.
The AP's reports found violations involving pregnant women across the country, including in states like California and Washington which do not have abortion bans. But there was also an immediate spike in the number of complaints involving pregnant women who were denied care in states like Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The story of one Black woman who was charged with a felony after miscarrying at home, prompted Rep. Emilia Sykes, D-Ohio, to introduce the resolution Thursday. Ohio doctors would not terminate her non-viable pregnancy because of the state's abortion law at the time.
“Let me be clear: women should be able to access reproductive health care for when they need it, whenever they need it but especially if they are in a life or death situation.”