WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats wanted to pass a resolution on Tuesday addressing access to abortion in medical emergencies, but Republicans blocked the move.
This decision followed months of unsuccessful attempts by Democrats in Congress to pass legislation on various reproductive rights, including access to contraception and in vitro fertilization.
Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington) said Tuesday that she introduced the resolution to clarify what Congress’s goal was several decades ago when lawmakers passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).
“We want to make clear that it is the intent of Congress that women can receive life-saving care when they visit an emergency room anywhere in this country,” Murray said.
Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford blocked Murray’s request for unanimous consent to the resolution, arguing that emergency room doctors could act in cases of miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and life-threatening situations.
“This is a false claim that what happened in the Dobbs ruling and what’s happening in the states somehow limits this,” Lankford said. “It’s actually the political rhetoric that’s making people afraid.”
Lankford objected to another motion by Murray for unanimous consent in March. Blocking the adoption of laws which would have expanded access to in vitro fertilization for military personnel and veterans.
No recorded vote
Unanimous consent is the fastest way to pass bills in the Senate. Under this process, any senator can move to pass a bill or resolution, and any senator can object. There is no roll call vote, where all senators are listed in the record.
Murray’s Two-sided resolutionwhich was supported by 40 co-signatories, would have “expressed the Senate’s belief that every person has a fundamental right to emergency medical care, including abortion care.”
The resolution also states: “State laws seeking to prohibit or restrict emergency abortions force health care providers to choose between withholding necessary, stabilizing medical care from a patient in a medical emergency or facing criminal prosecution. This puts patients’ lives, health, and futures at risk.”
This resolution would not have actually changed the text of EMTALA.
The 1986 law states that hospital emergency departments must treat or transfer patients with a medical emergency, regardless of their health insurance status or ability to pay.
It defines a medical emergency as something that could lead to a “serious threat” to the patient’s health, such as if the patient “experiences a serious impairment of body functions or a serious dysfunction of an organ or part of the body”.
Dobbs decision
The federal law has been at the center of political and legal debates since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion two years ago in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The Biden administration issued a public letter Shortly thereafter, it was stated that EMTALA protects physicians and other qualified health care professionals who terminate a pregnancy to stabilize the patient when her life or health is in danger.
Republican attorneys general in several states challenged this legal opinion, and the U.S. Department of Justice later sued Idaho over its abortion law.
This case went before the US Supreme Court earlier this year, but the judges ultimately decided Send it back to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The high court said it should have waited to hear the case until the lower court had ruled.
At the heart of the disagreement between Republican state attorneys general and the Biden administration is the fact that federal law applies when a pregnant patient’s life or health is in danger, whereas many of the conservative state laws allow abortions only after a certain period of pregnancy when the woman’s life is in danger.
Exactly when a woman’s life is in danger due to pregnancy complications has led to dozens of stories from women across the country who say they had to wait for treatment until their health deteriorated further.
Analysis by Associated Press released In August, it was found that over the past two years, more than 100 women who suffered health problems during pregnancy had been turned away from hospitals or treated negligently.
ProPublica recently received Reports “confirming that at least two women have already died after being denied access to legal abortions and timely medical care in their state.”
“This cruelty is unforgivable and unacceptable”
The Senate resolution, which Republicans rejected on Tuesday, is almost identical to a resolution passed by Democrats in the House of Representatives. introduced Beginning of the month.
Murray said ahead of her request to the UC that women and their families would not forget that they are being denied medical care because of Republican restrictions on access to abortion in the states.
“No woman will ever forget being sent to the hospital alone to suffer a miscarriage after her doctor told her, ‘Look, I know your life is in danger, but I’m not sure I can save you right now,'” Murray said. “No husband will ever forget calling 911 in a panic after finding his wife bleeding and unconscious. No child will ever forget for a single day of their life the mother they lost because of the Republican abortion ban.
“This cruelty is unforgivable and unacceptable. Democrats will not allow this to become the status quo.”
