Less than a week into the new year, a federal appeals court has already issued a pernicious new decision in a Texas abortion case, setting the stage for the far-right’s escalating assault on reproductive rights in 2024.
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that Texas hospitals are not obligated to perform abortions to stabilize a pregnant patient facing a medical emergency.
Like every attack on reproductive liberties and bodily autonomy, the challenge to EMTALA’s reach in these cases is not only a further threat to the lives of women and other pregnant people: It is also part of an ongoing process by which Republicans, aided by the judiciary, are able to withdraw the already limited provision of essential health care.
The judges — two appointed by Donald Trump and one by George W. Bush — ruled that should EMTALA conflict with Texas’s severe abortion restrictions, hospitals must follow the state law or face its extreme penalties.
Chris Geidner rightly noted in his LawDork newsletter that the panel’s reasoning involved “sloppy legal work at best, intentionally misleading at worst.” Still, the specious ruling sets up a Supreme Court challenge as to whether emergency abortions that stabilize a pregnant patient fall under federally required emergency health care — so degraded is the legal battle over reproductive rights that lifesaving medicine is the terrain.
This is why the fight for true reproductive justice has always been predicated on winning free, robust health care for all, while centrist Democrats have pushed only for an austere baseline of protection and provision.
The original article contains 865 words, the summary contains 257 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Less than a week into the new year, a federal appeals court has already issued a pernicious new decision in a Texas abortion case, setting the stage for the far-right’s escalating assault on reproductive rights in 2024.
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that Texas hospitals are not obligated to perform abortions to stabilize a pregnant patient facing a medical emergency.
Like every attack on reproductive liberties and bodily autonomy, the challenge to EMTALA’s reach in these cases is not only a further threat to the lives of women and other pregnant people: It is also part of an ongoing process by which Republicans, aided by the judiciary, are able to withdraw the already limited provision of essential health care.
The judges — two appointed by Donald Trump and one by George W. Bush — ruled that should EMTALA conflict with Texas’s severe abortion restrictions, hospitals must follow the state law or face its extreme penalties.
Chris Geidner rightly noted in his LawDork newsletter that the panel’s reasoning involved “sloppy legal work at best, intentionally misleading at worst.” Still, the specious ruling sets up a Supreme Court challenge as to whether emergency abortions that stabilize a pregnant patient fall under federally required emergency health care — so degraded is the legal battle over reproductive rights that lifesaving medicine is the terrain.
This is why the fight for true reproductive justice has always been predicated on winning free, robust health care for all, while centrist Democrats have pushed only for an austere baseline of protection and provision.
The original article contains 865 words, the summary contains 257 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!