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I'm in a very explicitly open by stating that I love posting about politics on this website, and I love arguing about politics on this website, but I am not making this post to do either of those things. If you want to go argue about the political merits of this, there may or may not be a secret place where you can do that on this website and you can ask me about it.
Now on to the meat of the matter:
www.nytimes.com
For those of you too busy to read, or who have an anaphylactic reaction to the New York times, here's a quick summary: HHS rescinded a policy that explicitly stated that abortion is allowed under EMTALA if the woman's life is endangered and then posted a new policy to replace it with extreme vague wording on the topic just saying more or less "EMTALA is a thing, figure it out on your own".
For the slightly more in depth summary: In the aftermath of the Supreme Court case a few years ago that allowed states to legislate abortion rights to whatever week they so wish, it was pointed out that this could present serious issues in the community emergency medicine community with how it contradicts with the need for stabilization. So a policy position was put out by then President Biden saying that states can set the law wherever they want, but federally if a woman presents with a life-threatening pregnancy related issue to the emergency department, federal law says that you need to do whatever it takes to stabilize her, including abortion if that is what it would require.
Cool. That made sense to me. I get that the way reality plays out is always more messy. People of one mindset will look at a pregnant woman in danger and say that she's not yet in sufficient life-threatening danger to justify an abortion and still turn her away. People of another mindset will argue that this gives federal coverage to break state law based on the "whims" of the EM doc. I get it. Reality remained messy. But at least there was clear formal statement that if you felt it was justified, the federal government had your back.
The federal government just rescinded that guidance and replaced it with a incredibly vague statement that notably has no mention of abortion and instead more concisely (but less clearly) states that hospitals would still be subject to a federal law requiring them to provide reproductive health care in emergency situations.
And if you look at it a certain way, that's not materially different. But also, The specific change it made is turning a very explicit policy into one that requires quite a bit of interpretation. And interpretation is not the best way to be practicing medicine when States carry extremely heavy penalties for violation of the sort of laws.
Is anyone else worried about this? Anyone plugged into any of the emergency medicine advocacy groups and have some idea as to to if they are already crafting a comment on this? I've been connected to advocacy groups for long enough (though I'm not affiliated right this second) to know that every time something like this comes down the pipe, there is already a group chat happening within a few hours with policy statements and formal responses being crafted
Now on to the meat of the matter:
Trump Rescinds Biden Policy Requiring Hospitals to Provide Emergency Abortions
At issue is how to interpret a federal law barring hospitals from turning away poor or uninsured patients.
For those of you too busy to read, or who have an anaphylactic reaction to the New York times, here's a quick summary: HHS rescinded a policy that explicitly stated that abortion is allowed under EMTALA if the woman's life is endangered and then posted a new policy to replace it with extreme vague wording on the topic just saying more or less "EMTALA is a thing, figure it out on your own".
For the slightly more in depth summary: In the aftermath of the Supreme Court case a few years ago that allowed states to legislate abortion rights to whatever week they so wish, it was pointed out that this could present serious issues in the community emergency medicine community with how it contradicts with the need for stabilization. So a policy position was put out by then President Biden saying that states can set the law wherever they want, but federally if a woman presents with a life-threatening pregnancy related issue to the emergency department, federal law says that you need to do whatever it takes to stabilize her, including abortion if that is what it would require.
Cool. That made sense to me. I get that the way reality plays out is always more messy. People of one mindset will look at a pregnant woman in danger and say that she's not yet in sufficient life-threatening danger to justify an abortion and still turn her away. People of another mindset will argue that this gives federal coverage to break state law based on the "whims" of the EM doc. I get it. Reality remained messy. But at least there was clear formal statement that if you felt it was justified, the federal government had your back.
The federal government just rescinded that guidance and replaced it with a incredibly vague statement that notably has no mention of abortion and instead more concisely (but less clearly) states that hospitals would still be subject to a federal law requiring them to provide reproductive health care in emergency situations.
And if you look at it a certain way, that's not materially different. But also, The specific change it made is turning a very explicit policy into one that requires quite a bit of interpretation. And interpretation is not the best way to be practicing medicine when States carry extremely heavy penalties for violation of the sort of laws.
Is anyone else worried about this? Anyone plugged into any of the emergency medicine advocacy groups and have some idea as to to if they are already crafting a comment on this? I've been connected to advocacy groups for long enough (though I'm not affiliated right this second) to know that every time something like this comes down the pipe, there is already a group chat happening within a few hours with policy statements and formal responses being crafted
