Federal appeals court rules Texas can ban emergency abortions, despite HHS guidance

Jan. 2 (UPI) -- A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday night that despite Biden administration guidance, Texas can prohibit emergency room doctors from performing abortions to stabilize a patient.

Texas has banned all abortions, with the exception of saving the life of the mother, since 2022 when the conservative-leaning Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling that provided federal protections for the medical procedure.

In response to the high-court's ruling and Republican-led states rushing to ban abortions, the Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance directing doctors to perform an abortion on a patient experiencing an emergency medical condition if it is a necessary "stabilizing treatment," even when the medical practice is prohibited by state law.

Texas followed by suing the Biden administration. A lower district court then enjoined the guidance's interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act within Texas, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed with on Tuesday.

"We agree with the district court that EMTALA does not provide an unqualified right for the pregnant mother to abort her child, especially when EMTALA imposes equal stabilization obligations," Judge Kurt Engelhardt, a former President Donald Trump appointee, wrote in the ruling.

"The question before the court is whether EMTALA, according to HHS' guidance, mandates physicians to provide abortion when that is the necessary stabilizing treatment for an emergency medical condition. Employing the traditional tools of statutory interpretation, we hold the HHS' guidance exceeds the statutory language."

The ruling states that the EMTALA does not mandate any specific type of medical treatment, including abortion and that the medical treatment is historically subject to police power of the states, which is not to be interfered with "unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress."

The appeal was heard by Former President Donald Trump appointees Engelhardt, Cory Wilson and former President George W. Bush appointee Leslie Southwick.

The ruling comes after the Texas Supreme Court ruled against a pregnant woman who sued the state to receive an emergency abortion over her fetus suffering from a severe fetal abnormality.