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The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA, requires hospitals to provide medically necessary care to stabilize patients in emergency situations.
One of the newest battlefields in the abortion debate is a decades-old federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known by doctors and health policymakers as EMTALA.
The issue involves whether the law requires hospital emergency rooms to provide abortions in urgent circumstances, including when a woman’s health is threatened by continuing her pregnancy. But, as with many abortion-related arguments, this one could have broader implications. Some legal experts say it could potentially determine how restrictive state abortion laws are allowed to be and whether states can prevent emergency rooms from providing other types of medical care, such as gender-affirming treatments.
The Biden administration is in the middle of legal battles over the law with the states of Texas and Idaho. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Idaho case.
What does the law do?
Enacted by Congress in 1986, EMTALA (pronounced em-TAHL-uh) requires hospitals across the country to guarantee all patients a standard of emergency care, regardless of whether they have insurance or can pay. The law, which was passed to address concerns that hospitals were failing to screen, treat or correctly transfer patients, applies to any hospital that receives Medicare funding and has an emergency department — most hospitals in the United States.
Specifically, the law says that if a patient goes to an emergency room with an “emergency medical condition,” hospitals must either provide treatment to stabilize the patient or transfer the patient to a medical facility that can. Hospitals that violate the law can face consequences including fines and exclusion from further Medicare funding.
What does that have to do with abortion?
The law does not mention abortion or name specific treatments for any emergency medical condition. It requires only that hospitals use accepted medical approaches for each patient. But soon after the Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in June 2022, the Biden administration issued a memorandum saying that EMTALA applies in cases where abortion is necessary to stabilize a patient.