WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has revoked a Biden-era health guideline that protected emergency abortions when medically required, even in states that ban the procedure.
The Biden-era memo was issued in July 2022, weeks after the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutionally enshrined right to abortion.
As health providers suddenly found themselves embroiled in legal uncertainty over abortion, the memo provided an interpretation of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), arguing it supersedes state abortion laws when needed to stabilize a pregnant patient.
The directive was fiercely contested by anti-abortion advocates.
In a letter Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the EMTALA guidance did not reflect the current administration’s policy.
“CMS is rescinding this memo ... effective May 29, 2025, consistent with Administration policy,” it said.
Offering its own interpretation, CMS said EMTALA provides the right for any hospital patient to receive “either stabilizing treatment or an appropriate transfer to another hospital.”
It said the US Health and Human Services would no longer enforce the Biden-era guidance.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute said the Trump administration’s revocation of the EMTALA guidelines showed “callous disregard for the law and people’s lives.”
Lawrence O. Gostin, a health law expert at Georgetown University, wrote in the New York Times that the CMS letter “basically gives a bright green light to hospitals in red states to turn away pregnant women who are in peril.”
According to Guttmacher, 13 US states, mostly in the south and east of the country, have “a total abortion ban” as of May 28.
While these states generally provide narrow exceptions in the event of a threat to the mother’s life, it is unclear what constitutes a life-threatening condition in the eyes of the law.
Since returning to office, US President Donald Trump has taken a series of moves to restrict abortion access.
In his first week back in the White House, Trump revoked two executive orders protecting access to a pill widely used to terminate pregnancies and the ability to travel to states where the procedure is not banned.
