The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says an Oklahoma hospital did not violate federal law when doctors told a woman with a nonviable pregnancy to wait in the parking lot until her condition worsened enough to qualify for an abortion under the state’s strict ban.

Jaci Statton, 26, was among several women last year who challenged abortion restrictions that went into effect in Republican-led states after the Supreme Court revoked the nationwide right to abortion in 2022.

Rather than join a lawsuit, Statton filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA. The complaint came a little more than a year after Biden’s administration informed hospitals that they must provide abortion services if the mother’s life is at risk. At the time, President Joe Biden’s administration said EMTALA supersedes state abortion bans that don’t have adequate exceptions for medical emergencies.

The Biden administration’s denial of Statton’s claim is the latest development in the ongoing scrutiny over how to apply EMTALA in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. It also underscores the uphill legal battle reproductive rights advocates when pushing back against state abortion bans.

  • Bremmy
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    10 months ago

    By your logic, someone can throw a chair through a window, then if someone cuts themselves on the window while maintenance gets to work fixing it, it’s the maintenance person’s fault

    Just like the “I DiD tHiS!” gas station stickers when gas was high, but now it’s low and somehow diaper don did that. You deplorables can’t see past one step in a series of events. Literal definition of the R word

    • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      More like the admin closing the window on someone who’s climbing half way through it and them blaming the murder on the person who broke the window.