258 Members of Congress ask Supreme Court to affirm district court decision that hospitals participating in Medicare must provide emergency stabilizing treatment to patients, including abortion care
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) joined Congressional colleagues in submitting amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, two consolidated cases concerning the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) that the Supreme Court will hear this April. EMTALA is a federal law that requires hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide necessary “stabilizing treatment” to patients experiencing medical emergencies, which can include abortion care.
After the Dobbs decision in 2022, an anti-abortion law in Idaho went into effect that makes it a felony for a doctor to terminate a patient’s pregnancy unless it is “necessary” to prevent the patient’s death. The United States sued the State of Idaho, arguing that the state’s law is preempted by EMTALA in cases in which abortion may not be necessary to prevent imminent death, but still is still necessary to stabilize and treat a patient’s emergency medical condition.
In their brief in support of the Justice Department, the lawmakers ask the Supreme Court to uphold the district court’s ruling that EMTALA requires Medicare-participating hospitals to provide abortion as emergency medical treatment. They argue that EMTALA preempts Idaho’s abortion ban in emergency situations that threaten patients’ health.
“[T]he 99th Congress passed EMTALA to ensure that every person who visits a Medicare-funded hospital with an ‘emergency medical condition’ is offered stabilizing treatment,” the Members write. “…That text—untouched by Congress for the past three decades—makes clear that in situations in which a doctor determines that abortion constitutes the ‘[n]ecessary stabilizing treatment’ for a pregnant patient… federal law requires the hospital to offer it. Yet Idaho has made providing that care a felony, in direct contravention of EMTALA’s mandate that it be offered.”
“These are not hypothetical scenarios. Because Idaho’s abortion ban contains no clear exceptions for the ‘emergency medical conditions’ covered by EMTALA, physicians are forced to wait until their patients are on the verge of death before providing abortion care,” write the Members, pointing to harrowing reports of pregnant women with severe health complications being denied necessary abortion care. “Federal law does not allow Idaho to endanger the lives of its residents in this way.”
The lawmakers conclude by asking the Supreme Court to affirm the district court’s decision that EMTALA requires Medicare-participating hospitals to provide abortion care when it is necessary as emergency medical treatment.
The brief is signed by 49 Senators and 209 U.S. Representatives, and is led in the Senate by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). The lawmakers’ amicus brief to the Supreme Court can be read in full HERE.
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