Comment Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sued the Biden administration over federal rules requiring abortions to be provided in medical emergencies to save the mother’s life, even in states with near-total bans. “The Biden administration is seeking to turn every emergency room in the country into an abortion clinic,” Paxton said in a statement announcing the lawsuit Thursday. The lawsuit follows new guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services that argued that the federal law requiring emergency medical care supersedes any state restrictions on abortion in cases where the life or health of the pregnant patient is at risk. Earlier this week, the Biden administration sent a memo to state officials reminding them of an existing law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which “requires all patients to undergo appropriate medical evaluation, stabilization treatment and transport, if necessary . in accordance with HHS guidelines. That requirement exists “regardless of any state laws or orders that apply to specific procedures,” the memo said. Although the HHS guidance focuses on abortions performed in emergency situations, Texas officials interpreted the memo as a mandate that all emergency hospitals must operate as a “walk-in abortion clinic.” “President Biden is blatantly ignoring legislative and democratic process — and defying a Supreme Court ruling before the ink is dry — by asking his bureaucrat appointees to require hospitals and emergency physicians to perform abortions,” the lawsuit said. The lawsuit challenges the Biden administration’s directive on the grounds that it uses federal funds — because it ties compliance to Medicare funds and because Justice Department funding will be spent on federal law enforcement — in violation of the Hyde Amendment that prohibits federal spending to facilitate an abortion except in cases of rape, incest or patient safety. The lawsuit suggests that this guidance “would force health care providers to provide abortions outside of the scope permitted under the Hyde Amendment.” The complaint also argues that HHS should have submitted the guidance to a lengthy “notice and comment” process required by the new proposed rules from federal agencies. The Biden administration’s memo did not implement a new rule, but argued that an existing law should apply to abortions. And it argues that the guidance violates the Tenth Amendment, along with a law that prohibits “arbitrary and capricious” actions by federal agencies. Texas has an almost complete ban on abortion with one exception that allows doctors to perform an abortion in order to save the life of a pregnant patient. The White House and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
