The Trump administration has rescinded guidance telling health care workers who provide abortions to save their patients’ lives that they are protected under federal law.
The Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Tuesday it is rescinding guidance issued during the Biden administration, reinforcing to hospitals that under the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act they must provide emergency abortions to pregnant patients if they are needed to save their lives.
“Legally, it means nothing,” Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project told partner The Hill. “The obligation to provide emergency care comes from a federal statute… and as much as they might like to President Trump and Secretary Kennedy can not erase 40 years of law with this press release.”
CMS said in a statement that the agency will continue to enforce EMTALA, which protects all emergency room patients seeking treatment, including “identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy.”
“CMS will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration’s actions,” the statement adds.
The guidance change comes about two months after the Trump administration dropped a high-profile case over the right to an emergency abortion in Idaho, which health care policy experts said signaled an “imminent reversal” of EMTALA guidance issued by the Biden administration.
EMTALA was passed in 1986 to protect Americans from “patient dumping,” a practice at hospitals and other clinics where patients are transferred to other facilities without their consent due to their inability to pay. The Biden administration in 2022 issued guidance on abortion specifically, following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade. A cascade of state laws quickly banned abortion, but the guidance allowed for emergency procedures and protected physicians in those cases.
The move does not change the law, but it does make it more confusing for doctors to know what care they can legally provide for pregnancy terminations, especially if they practice in states with abortion bans, according to Kolbi-Molinas. Reproductive rights groups and health care providers are bashing the move, arguing that it will profoundly hurt the health of pregnant people in the United States.
“By rescinding this guidance, the Trump administration has sent a clear signal that it is siding not with the majority, but with its anti-abortion allies and that will come at the expense of women’s lives,” Kolbi-Molinas said. “The ACLU will use every lever we have to keep President Trump and his administration from endangering our health and lives.”
Jamila Perritt, president and CEO of the group Physicians for Reproductive Health, said that she is “deeply troubled” by the Trump administration’s decision to change the guidance, arguing that it is abandoning its responsibility to people who need emergency medical care.
“This action sends a clear message: the lives and health of pregnant people are not worth protecting,” she said in a statement. “Complying with this law can mean the difference between life and death for pregnant people, forcing providers like me to choose between caring for someone in their time of need and turning my back on them to comply with cruel and dangerous laws …”
Meanwhile, some anti-abortion groups lauded CMS’s move, calling it a “victory.”
“Led by Dr. Oz, the Trump administration has delivered another win for life and truth stopping Biden’s attack on emergency care for both pregnant moms and their unborn children,” wrote Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
“We call on more states to follow the Trump administration’s lead and pass Med Ed laws to protect women from abortion lobby misinformation.”
