Latest news with #EmergencyMedicalTreatmentandActiveLaborAct
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Who would want to have babies under a Trump administration? Not me.
Despite declarations that something needs to be done about the declining birth rate in the United States, neither President Donald Trump nor the Republican Party has the desire to protect pregnant people. If they did, the Trump administration wouldn't have made its latest move to restrict abortion nationwide. On Tuesday, June 3, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rescinded a Biden-era policy that directed hospitals to provide emergency abortions if it was needed to stabilize a pregnant patient. The guidance and communications on it apparently 'do not reflect the policy of this Administration.' I, like many people who support abortion rights, know what this will lead to. It means more pregnant people will die. Does that reflect the policy of the administration? The Biden policy was implemented in 2022, following the fall of Roe v. Wade, and argued that hospitals receiving Medicare funding had to comply with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). The former administration argued that this included providing emergency abortions when they were needed to stabilize a patient, even in states that had severe abortion restrictions. Opinion: A brain dead pregnant Georgia woman is a horror story. It's Republicans' fault. This wasn't entirely a surprise. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could ban virtually all abortions in the state, including abortions that would have occurred under the old EMTALA guidelines. Still, it's terrifying to see this crucial policy eliminated. It's already dangerous to be pregnant in the United States. Our maternal mortality rate is much higher than in other wealthy countries. Same with our infant mortality rate. This will only exacerbate these tragedies. In states with abortion bans, the risks are even greater. A study from the Gender Equity Policy Institute found that people living in states with abortion bans were twice as likely to die during or shortly after childbirth. This is also backed by anecdotal evidence, including the 2022 deaths of two women in Georgia after the state passed a six-week ban. A different study found that infant mortality rates increased in states with severe restrictions on abortion, including an increase in deaths due to congenital anomalies. The Trump administration does not care about what is medically necessary to save someone's life. They don't care about whether the children supposedly saved by rescinding this policy will grow up without their mother. They care about their perceived moral superiority. They care about controlling women. Why would anybody want to have a child under that Republican way of thinking? Opinion: We're worrying about the wrong thing. Low birth rate isn't the crisis: Child care is. I want to say I'm surprised that the Trump administration would allow women in need of emergency care to die. Yet this is clearly aligned with the Republican stance on abortion, just like it's aligned with the actions that the party has taken to make it harder for women to access necessary care. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Whether you like it or not, abortion is a necessary part of health care. It saves lives. Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, laid it out plainly. 'Women have died because they couldn't get the lifesaving abortion care they needed,' she said in a statement. 'The Trump administration is willing to let pregnant people die, and that is exactly what we can expect." Again, this is the administration that wants young women like me to have children and improve the country's birth rate. This is an administration that claims to care about women and children. I know I wouldn't want to have a child while Trump continues to make it unsafe to be pregnant and give birth. I hate that this is the reality. Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump just made healthcare more dangerous for pregnant women | Opinion
USA Today
16 hours ago
- Health
- USA Today
Who would want to have babies under a Trump administration? Not me.
Who would want to have babies under a Trump administration? Not me. | Opinion The Trump administration does not care about what is medically necessary to save someone's life. They care about controlling women. Why would anybody want to have a child under that way of thinking? Show Caption Hide Caption Trump rescinds Biden-era emergency abortion care guidance The Trump administration rescinded guidance clarifying that hospitals in abortion-ban states must treat pregnant patients during medical emergencies. unbranded - Newsworthy Despite declarations that something needs to be done about the declining birth rate in the United States, neither President Donald Trump nor the Republican Party has the desire to protect pregnant people. If they did, the Trump administration wouldn't have made its latest move to restrict abortion nationwide. On Tuesday, June 3, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rescinded a Biden-era policy that directed hospitals to provide emergency abortions if it was needed to stabilize a pregnant patient. The guidance and communications on it apparently 'do not reflect the policy of this Administration.' I, like many people who support abortion rights, know what this will lead to. It means more pregnant people will die. Does that reflect the policy of the administration? Having a baby in America is dangerous. Republicans aren't helping. The Biden policy was implemented in 2022, following the fall of Roe v. Wade, and argued that hospitals receiving Medicare funding had to comply with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). The former administration argued that this included providing emergency abortions when they were needed to stabilize a patient, even in states that had severe abortion restrictions. Opinion: A brain dead pregnant Georgia woman is a horror story. It's Republicans' fault. This wasn't entirely a surprise. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could ban virtually all abortions in the state, including abortions that would have occurred under the old EMTALA guidelines. Still, it's terrifying to see this crucial policy eliminated. It's already dangerous to be pregnant in the United States. Our maternal mortality rate is much higher than in other wealthy countries. Same with our infant mortality rate. This will only exacerbate these tragedies. In states with abortion bans, the risks are even greater. A study from the Gender Equity Policy Institute found that people living in states with abortion bans were twice as likely to die during or shortly after childbirth. This is also backed by anecdotal evidence, including the 2022 deaths of two women in Georgia after the state passed a six-week ban. A different study found that infant mortality rates increased in states with severe restrictions on abortion, including an increase in deaths due to congenital anomalies. The Trump administration does not care about what is medically necessary to save someone's life. They don't care about whether the children supposedly saved by rescinding this policy will grow up without their mother. They care about their perceived moral superiority. They care about controlling women. Why would anybody want to have a child under that Republican way of thinking? Opinion: We're worrying about the wrong thing. Low birth rate isn't the crisis: Child care is. None of this is surprising from Republicans. It's just sad. I want to say I'm surprised that the Trump administration would allow women in need of emergency care to die. Yet this is clearly aligned with the Republican stance on abortion, just like it's aligned with the actions that the party has taken to make it harder for women to access necessary care. Whether you like it or not, abortion is a necessary part of health care. It saves lives. Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, laid it out plainly. 'Women have died because they couldn't get the lifesaving abortion care they needed,' she said in a statement. 'The Trump administration is willing to let pregnant people die, and that is exactly what we can expect." Again, this is the administration that wants young women like me to have children and improve the country's birth rate. This is an administration that claims to care about women and children. I know I wouldn't want to have a child while Trump continues to make it unsafe to be pregnant and give birth. I hate that this is the reality. Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Revoking EMTALA guidance on abortions will only further confuse doctors, experts say
In revoking federal guidance requiring emergency, life-saving abortions to protect the lives of pregnant women, the Trump Administration has added confusion to an already impossible situation for doctors, possibly putting women's lives at risk, experts told ABC News. "The rescission of this guidance is, contrary to its own statement, only further lending into the confusion that exists in emergency departments around the country, and it will put women's lives at risk," Alison Tanner, an attorney at the National Women's Law Center, told ABC News. "There have been countless stories of people across the country being denied emergency care, forced to wait in their cars in parking lots while they are actively bleeding, or being sent to different hospitals with a bucket and told to leave the state that they're in in order to get the care that they need," Tanner said. Earlier this week, the Trump administration revoked Biden-era federal guidance reminding hospitals that they are required to provide life-saving care, including abortions, in emergency situations under a federal law -- the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act -- regardless of state law. The guidance was issued after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, ending federal protections for abortion rights. At least 13 states have total abortion bans in effect, according to the Guttmacher Institute. As the administration rolled back the guidance this week, a government agency also found that a Texas hospital "failed to ensure ... [Kyleigh Thurman] received an appropriate medical screening," when she presented to the emergency department in early 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a deficiency letter shared with ABC News. MORE: Trump administration rescinds Biden-era guidance requiring hospitals to perform emergency abortions Thurman ultimately needed to have a fallopian tube removed after it ruptured due to an ectopic pregnancy. Thurman said she was turned away twice from a local emergency room, without treatment. Another facility also denied her care twice, before her OB-GYN traveled to the hospital and convinced staff to end the pregnancy. She was rushed to surgery days later after the tube ruptured. Ectopic pregnancies are a dangerous complication that occurs when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside the uterus, in this case, in her fallopian tube. The treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is an abortion to prevent life-threatening complications. The hospital "did not appropriately screen [Thurman] for known risks associated with presenting signs, symptoms and test results including those which would constitute an [emergency medical condition], such as, but not limited to, ectopic pregnancy," the deficiency letter stated. "The hospital's failure to provide an appropriate medical screening examination, within the capability of the hospital's emergency department ... and consistent with the hospital's screening process, placed the patient at risk for deterioration of her health and wellbeing as a result of an untreated medical condition," the letter said. The determination was made after Thurman submitted an administrative complaint to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an office within the Department of Health and Human Services, in August 2024. MORE: Meet 18 women who shared heartbreaking pregnancy journeys in post-Roe world "I know how incredibly horrible and how hard it was for me, and I didn't want anyone else to ever have to go through what I had to go through," Thurman told ABC News. Thurman said she did not know how Texas' near-total abortion ban could impact her health or even what an ectopic pregnancy is before she learned she was pregnant. "I never imagined myself being caught in the crosshairs, but I don't think that many people ever do. It only highlights how this can happen to anyone," Thurman said. "I really didn't have a thought on it, and it really didn't become evident to me how negatively [abortion bans] would impact women until it was impacting my life," Thurman said. "I didn't know what it all meant." Thurman said she wants to try for a family despite her experience. "A lot of people are like 'just move' and I'm like, 'it's not that simple when you have deep roots in a place.' This is my home. I am not leaving. I'd rather fight back than leave," Thurman said. The new guidance will only create more confusion around what is already "muddy and very confusing," Thurman said. It is now more of an environment where "mistakes can happen," Thurman said. Despite the rescinding of the guidance, hospitals and physicians are still required to provide stabilizing care, experts said. "EMTALA is still the law of the land. Hospitals and doctors must still comply with EMTALA," Astrid Ackerman, a staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights who worked on filing EMTALA complaints, told ABC News. "What we're really concerned about is that this trend of that pregnant people cannot get the care that they need in this country, and more importantly, the care that hospitals and doctors want to provide," Ackerman said. Tanner said there is a real concern about whether the Trump administration will enforce EMTALA, especially after it dropped a federal lawsuit over Idaho's abortion ban, which does not allow abortions to save the life of the mother. An injunction in a separate EMTALA lawsuit by a hospital system in the state has blocked the ban. Doctors and hospitals are now stuck between "a rock and a hard place," trying to figure out what care they can provide, Tanner said. "Doctors and hospitals are being put in an untenable position. On the one hand, they are faced with state laws that would potentially impose severe criminal sanctions for providing necessary emergency abortion care," Tanner said. "And on the other hand, they have the federal law, EMTALA, which provides that both the federal government and individual patients can sue the hospital if they do not provide the necessary stabilizing care required under federal law," Tanner said. Revoking EMTALA guidance on abortions will only further confuse doctors, experts say originally appeared on
16 hours ago
- Health
Revoking EMTALA guidance on abortions will only further confuse doctors, experts say
In revoking federal guidance requiring emergency, life-saving abortions to protect the lives of pregnant women, the Trump Administration has added confusion to an already impossible situation for doctors, possibly putting women's lives at risk, experts told ABC News. "The rescission of this guidance is, contrary to its own statement, only further lending into the confusion that exists in emergency departments around the country, and it will put women's lives at risk," Alison Tanner, an attorney at the National Women's Law Center, told ABC News. "There have been countless stories of people across the country being denied emergency care, forced to wait in their cars in parking lots while they are actively bleeding, or being sent to different hospitals with a bucket and told to leave the state that they're in in order to get the care that they need," Tanner said. Earlier this week, the Trump administration revoked Biden-era federal guidance reminding hospitals that they are required to provide life-saving care, including abortions, in emergency situations under a federal law -- the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act -- regardless of state law. The guidance was issued after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, ending federal protections for abortion rights. At least 13 states have total abortion bans in effect, according to the Guttmacher Institute. As the administration rolled back the guidance this week, a government agency also found that a Texas hospital "failed to ensure ... [Kyleigh Thurman] received an appropriate medical screening," when she presented to the emergency department in early 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a deficiency letter shared with ABC News. Thurman ultimately needed to have a fallopian tube removed after it ruptured due to an ectopic pregnancy. Thurman said she was turned away twice from a local emergency room, without treatment. Another facility also denied her care twice, before her OB-GYN traveled to the hospital and convinced staff to end the pregnancy. She was rushed to surgery days later after the tube ruptured. Ectopic pregnancies are a dangerous complication that occurs when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside the uterus, in this case, in her fallopian tube. The treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is an abortion to prevent life-threatening complications. The hospital "did not appropriately screen [Thurman] for known risks associated with presenting signs, symptoms and test results including those which would constitute an [emergency medical condition], such as, but not limited to, ectopic pregnancy," the deficiency letter stated. "The hospital's failure to provide an appropriate medical screening examination, within the capability of the hospital's emergency department ... and consistent with the hospital's screening process, placed the patient at risk for deterioration of her health and wellbeing as a result of an untreated medical condition," the letter said. The determination was made after Thurman submitted an administrative complaint to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an office within the Department of Health and Human Services, in August 2024. "I know how incredibly horrible and how hard it was for me, and I didn't want anyone else to ever have to go through what I had to go through," Thurman told ABC News. Thurman said she did not know how Texas' near-total abortion ban could impact her health or even what an ectopic pregnancy is before she learned she was pregnant. "I never imagined myself being caught in the crosshairs, but I don't think that many people ever do. It only highlights how this can happen to anyone," Thurman said. "I really didn't have a thought on it, and it really didn't become evident to me how negatively [abortion bans] would impact women until it was impacting my life," Thurman said. "I didn't know what it all meant." Thurman said she wants to try for a family despite her experience. "A lot of people are like 'just move' and I'm like, 'it's not that simple when you have deep roots in a place.' This is my home. I am not leaving. I'd rather fight back than leave," Thurman said. The new guidance will only create more confusion around what is already "muddy and very confusing," Thurman said. It is now more of an environment where "mistakes can happen," Thurman said. Despite the rescinding of the guidance, hospitals and physicians are still required to provide stabilizing care, experts said. "EMTALA is still the law of the land. Hospitals and doctors must still comply with EMTALA," Astrid Ackerman, a staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights who worked on filing EMTALA complaints, told ABC News. "What we're really concerned about is that this trend of that pregnant people cannot get the care that they need in this country, and more importantly, the care that hospitals and doctors want to provide," Ackerman said. Tanner said there is a real concern about whether the Trump administration will enforce EMTALA, especially after it dropped a federal lawsuit over Idaho's abortion ban, which does not allow abortions to save the life of the mother. An injunction in a separate EMTALA lawsuit by a hospital system in the state has blocked the ban. Doctors and hospitals are now stuck between "a rock and a hard place," trying to figure out what care they can provide, Tanner said. "Doctors and hospitals are being put in an untenable position. On the one hand, they are faced with state laws that would potentially impose severe criminal sanctions for providing necessary emergency abortion care," Tanner said. "And on the other hand, they have the federal law, EMTALA, which provides that both the federal government and individual patients can sue the hospital if they do not provide the necessary stabilizing care required under federal law," Tanner said.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Illinois affirms right to emergency abortions, following Trump administration's change in federal guidance
CHICAGO — Illinois hospital emergency departments must continue to provide abortions when necessary to pregnant women whose health is in danger, despite a change in federal guidance earlier this week, state leaders affirmed Wednesday. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump's administration rescinded guidance issued while Joe Biden was president that said if a physician felt an abortion was necessary to stabilize a pregnant woman experiencing a medical emergency, the doctor must provide that treatment, even if abortions were against state law. On Tuesday, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a statement that guidance did 'not reflect the policy of this Administration.' The Biden administration issued the guidance in 2022 following the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization – a decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving it up to states whether to keep abortion legal. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, however, said in a news release Wednesday that 'providing the full range of reproductive care for anyone facing life-threatening emergencies is enshrined in state law.' 'This cruel action by the Trump administration creates confusion for healthcare providers and is one more example of how the Dobbs decision has diminished maternal health and healthcare for all (women) across the country,' Pritzker said. Illinois passed a law last year amending the Illinois Hospital Emergency Service Act to make it clear that that life-saving treatment includes abortion, and Illinois hospitals can be penalized for not following that law. The Illinois Department of Public Health is now working to make sure hospitals are aware of that state law, according to the release. The state enforces that law mainly by responding to complaints made to the state health department by members of the public. The federal Centers for Medicare Services said in its statement Tuesday that it 'will continue to enforce (the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act), which protects all individuals who present to a hospital emergency department seeking examination or treatment, including for identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy.' But the federal agency also said it 'will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration's actions.' Earlier this week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also released a practice advisory affirming that in certain medical situations, providers must be able to 'provide abortion care before the patient becomes critically ill.' ____
