Q: Why are emergency rooms in Florida and Texas refusing to help a pregnant women? Two instances where this happened?
Some people tie it to the abortion law but the one women was turned away and had a miscarriage in her car. Is that legal. And what does abortion have to do with it?
A:
A federal law from the Reagan Administration (abbreviated EMTALA) requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients who are in active labor and provide a medical transfer to another hospital if they don’t have the staff or resources to treat them. Medical facilities must comply with the law if they accept Medicare funding. This law has not significantly changed since 1986.
One of the big driving forces for the passage of EMTALA in the first place was poor pregnant women being denied childbirth care by hospitals because they did not have insurance. Unfortunately, there have been complaints since that law was passed about a practice sometimes referred to as patient dumping--when a hospital that is capable of providing the needed medical care sends a patient to another facility or simply turns the patient away because the patient is unable to pay. This is, and has been, illegal since 1986. But it has continued to happen despite EMTALA.
Some people have pointed to particular instances of patient dumping of pregnant women in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, suggesting that pregnant women are being denied care despite EMTALA out of fear that treating them somehow will result in criminal prosecution or other sanctions being imposed under those state's abortion laws.
The Texas example which has appeared in the media involves a small rural community hospital and clinic in the tiny town of Marlin, Texas (pop. 5,462). In that instance, the doctor on duty told the patient that that the facility did not have obstetric services or capabilities. The nursing staff told the doctor that they could test her for the presence of amniotic fluid, but the doctor recommended the patient drive to a Waco hospital that did provide obstetric services.
Some people believe that the doctor was fearful that he would be prosecuted under the Texas abortion law for treating the pregnant patient even though this doesn't make any sense.
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