White House revokes guidance requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions | PBS NewsHour | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: White House revokes guidance requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions
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Geoff: The trump administration
rescinded federal guidance that
required emergency rooms to
provide an abortion if the
procedure would save a patient's
life.
That guidance, issued by the
Biden administration in 2022
after roe V. Wade was
overturned, argued a law known
as the emergency medical
treatment and active labor act,
or emtala, required hospitals to
stabilize a patient's health
during medical emergencies -
even in states with near total
abortion bans.
Yesterday, the administration
said the guidance did not
reflect president trump's
policy.
For more on how this will affect
pregnant women, and access to
life-saving medical care
at-large, we're joined by
special correspondent Sarah
Varney.
Why was this implemented in the
first place? What problem was it
trying to solve?
Sarah: President Ronald Reagan
signed this bill in 1986 kid at
the time, hospitals were
routinely turning away patients
without insurance even when they
might have life-threatening
medical conditions so this law
was written and went into effect
and said that yards across the
country that receive medicare
payments, which is essentially
every hospital in the united
States, has two stable lives a
patient with an emergency
medical condition before they
can transfer them.
Geoff: What did the Biden
administration require
post-dobbs and what is the trump
administration now saying it no
longer has to be?
>> A month or so after the dogs
decision, the Biden
administration issued a
memorandum that went out all the
hospitals around the country
that receive these medicare
funds and it reminded them that
the law was in effect and
according to the Biden
administration's reading, it
meant that even in states that
have very strict abortion bans
that women who presented in
emergency rooms with
life-threatening medical could
conditions, if an abortion was
needed to stabilize her, that
those hospitals had to provide
that treatment.
What the trump administration is
essentially saying is we are
rescinding that letter and
leaving it open to
interpretation from the
different hospitals about
whether or not certain emergency
medical conditions meet their
state band.
Geoff: What state would be most
affected by this?
Sarah: There is certain states
where there no exceptions for
the health of the pregnant woman
P.R. Arkansas, Idaho,
Mississippi, Oklahoma, and south
Dakota.
These are some places where a
pregnant person could go into
the emergency room and there
would be some debate about
whether or not they could have
an abortion if that was
necessary to stabilize their
health.
Just an example, for instance,
in South Dakota, they released a
report last year that showed
that there were, according to
their records command zero
abortions that happened in south
Dakota hospitals in 2023.
Geoff: How would this affect a
pregnant woman in a red state
versus a blue state?
Sarah: Even with the Biden
guidance in effect, there has
been pretty significant
differences between the types of
care that pregnant women have
gotten in states with abortion
bans and states without peer the
associated press did an
investigation that found dozens
of women who were turned away
from emergency rooms including
when they needed an abortion to
stabilize their health care.
Republicans have done
extraordinary investigative
reporting, finding women have
been turned away from emergency
room's and have not received the
care they needed.
They were either armed or in
some cases, they died.
We have already seen this divide
in this patchwork of care
emerging across the united
States.
Geoff: How are antiabortion
groups responding to this
announcement?
Sarah: They are celebrating the
rescission of this Biden era
guidance.
They say exactly not necessary.
They point to these induced
termination of pregnancy reports
as we were just mentioning about
South Dakota and places like
Texas where you had 14 abortions
loosely due to emergency
situations in Texas in January
of 2025 so the antiabortion
groups and lawmakers,
antiabortion lawmakers say that
these laws are working as they
were intended and that women can
in fact get emergency room care
when it is necessary.
Geoff: As I understand it, this
decision was outlined in project
2025, that conservative
blueprint for a second trump
term.
Tell us more about that.
Sarah: It was included in
project 2025 so we are seeing
that checked off the list and it
also calls for the
administration to stop defending
existing lawsuits that were held
over from the Biden
administration and then there's
many things in project 2025 that
have to do with abortion
including calls for a national
abortion surveillance program so
that there would be national
data for -- about the number of
abortions that are happening in
the United States.
It calls for the reversal of fda
approval of the abortion pill
and for the enforcement of the
Comstock act which would
essentially cease the mailing of
abortion pill's around the
country.
Geoff: Sarah, thanks again for
your time this evening.
Sarah: Thank you.
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