What Is EMTALA and What Does It Have To Do With Abortion?

A 1986 law and the limits of Executive power to change it

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

This week, President Trump’s administration revoked a 2022 guidelines statement issued by the Biden administration in regard to EMTALA.

What is EMTALA? What does it mean that the President did this? And why is everyone talking about abortion?

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act

In 1986, the United States Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act — referred to as EMTALA. It made it law that medical facilities that accept payments from Medicare provide appropriate medical assessment if it is requested and provide emergency care if it is needed. Patients can only be transferred to another facility if they consent and are stable, or the facility is wholly unable to offer them the treatment needed — but the facility cannot shirk their duty to treat emergency cases due to fear of non-payment. In evidence-based practice, this includes women undergoing miscarriage and in need of D&C — which is often referred to as an abortion procedure because it removes the uterine lining.

In a really simplified explanation, this made it illegal for a hospital that receives federal funding to…