In a letter to health care providers, the president’s health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) protects providers from any alleged state restrictions if they are asked to perform an emergency abortions. “Under the law, no matter where you live, women have a right to emergency care — including abortion care,” Becerra said. “Today, in no uncertain terms, we reinforce that we expect providers to continue to offer these services and that federal law preempts state abortion bans when needed for emergency care.” Becerra said medical emergencies include ectopic pregnancies, complications resulting from miscarriages and preeclampsia, NBC News reported. A hospital found to have violated federal law could be stripped of its Medicare provider status and subject to “civil monetary penalties,” Becerra added. The health minister’s intervention comes as abortion bans have already come into effect in 13 states, with another 13 expected to follow. The bans come into effect after the Supreme Court last month overturned the landmark Roe v Wade decision that had granted federal abortion rights since 1973. On Friday, Biden signed an executive order that he said would protect access to medication abortion and emergency contraception and aims to educate people about protecting their personal data to prevent “extremist governors” from accessing confidential health data from phones. As Democrats try to respond to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar have written to tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg over reports that Facebook and Instagram are “censoring posts” containing information about how to obtain an abortion legally. Services. The Associated Press reported in June that, in the wake of Roe v Wade, Facebook and Instagram had begun removing posts that offered “abortion pills to women who may not have access to them.” In their letter, Warren and Klobuchar said: “It is more important than ever that social media platforms do not censor truthful posts about abortion, particularly as people across the country turn to online communities to discuss and find information about reproduction rights’. Democrats plan to hold votes this week on legislation that would preserve access to abortion, the New York Times reported Tuesday, but with a divided Senate, any law guaranteeing abortion is expected to fail. Becerra said in his letter to medical providers: “If a physician believes that a pregnant patient presenting to an emergency department, including certain labor and delivery departments, is experiencing a medical emergency as defined by EMTALA and that an abortion is the stabilization therapy required to resolve this condition, the physician must provide this therapy. “And when a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life and health of the pregnant woman – or makes the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s definition of a medical emergency – that state law is preempted.” A majority of Americans believe access to abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and last week a Pew Research poll found that 57% of Americans oppose the Supreme Court’s repeal of abortion rights nationwide .
