The memorandum, which required that hospitals carry out abortions of emergency when women’s health was at risk —It even in states with restrictions on the procedure – was revoked by a division of the Department of Health, by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Biden government had published the Recommendations in July 2022after the revocation of the right to abortion at the federal level by the Supreme Court.
These guidelines tried to maintain some protections for the right to abortion through an interpretation of the Emergency and labor medical treatment law of 1986.
Now the official guideline offers her own interpretation of the law and affirms that this grants the right to any hospitalized patient to receive “Either stabilizer treatment or an adequate transfer to another hospital.”
Although the part of the document that addressed abortion protections was revoked, the general law that enshrines continues the right of people to receive emergency medical services.
“Patients, including pregnant persons, have full rights and protections established by this Federal Law,” stipulates the memorandum.
The document indicates that the Department of Health cannot enforce the interpretation of the law “When an abortion is necessary”, above the state laws that regulate this procedure.
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The Guttmacher Institute, defender of the right to abortion, declared that the revocation of the guidelines of the law known as Emtala On the part of the Trump administration shows “a cruel contempt for law and for the lives of people.”
Lawrence O. Gostin, an expert in health laws at Georgetown, wrote in the New York Times that the memorandum “basically gives the green light to hospitals in conservative states for reject pregnant women who are in danger”
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 13 states of the country, mainly in the south and east of the United States, have “a Total abortion prohibition “.
This is the last action of the Trump government to restrict access to abortion.
In his first week back to the White House, Trump revoked two executive orders signed by Biden that protected access to abortive pills and the possibility of traveling to states where pregnancy interruption is not prohibited.