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US government rejects complaint that woman was improperly denied an emergency abortion in Oklahoma (apnews.com)

submitted 7 months ago by MicroWave to c/news

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says an Oklahoma hospital did not violate federal law when doctors told a woman with a nonviable pregnancy to wait in the parking lot until her condition worsened enough to qualify for an abortion under the state’s strict ban.

Jaci Statton, 26, was among several women last year who challenged abortion restrictions that went into effect in Republican-led states after the Supreme Court revoked the nationwide right to abortion in 2022.

Rather than join a lawsuit, Statton filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA. The complaint came a little more than a year after Biden’s administration informed hospitals that they must provide abortion services if the mother’s life is at risk. At the time, President Joe Biden’s administration said EMTALA supersedes state abortion bans that don’t have adequate exceptions for medical emergencies.

The Biden administration’s denial of Statton’s claim is the latest development in the ongoing scrutiny over how to apply EMTALA in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. It also underscores the uphill legal battle reproductive rights advocates when pushing back against state abortion bans.

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[–] gAlienLifeform 72 points 7 months ago (10 children)

According to the complaint, Statton learned she was pregnant in early 2023 and soon began experiencing severe pain and nausea. Doctors in Oklahoma eventually told her that she had a partial molar pregnancy, which left untreated could cause hemorrhaging, infection, and even death.

“However, providers told Jaci that they could not provide an abortion until she was actively crashing in front of them or on the verge of a heart attack,” the complaint stated. “In the meantime, the best that they could offer was to let Jaci sit in the parking lot so that she would be close to the hospital when her condition further deteriorated.”

If federal law saying hospitals can't just let pregnant people die doesn't apply here, when the hell would it apply?

[–] MicroWave 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

I found a bit more info with this Washington Post article:

“Jaci’s case is the perfect example of how it appears they are actually applying EMTALA in what could be charitably described as the narrowest sense,” said Rabia Muqaddam, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, who worked with Statton on her complaint. “It’s not just frustrating. It’s inexplicable, frankly.”

...

“Then they said, ‘You can go sit in the parking lot and we can be ready to help you,’” Statton said.

That move within the hospital may have been the reason Statton’s complaint was denied, said Muqaddam. EMTALA only covers patients in emergency situations who require “stabilizing care for an emergency medical condition,” she said — so if a patient is transferred out of an emergency department, it’s more difficult to argue that the hospital violated the federal law.

“We do think that might be them trying to evade EMTALA,” Muqaddam said, adding that the federal law does not permit that kind of maneuvering.

Looks like the hospital, being in Oklahoma, took the conservative route in trying to stay within EMTALA.

[–] gAlienLifeform 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Except when you put those quotes in context, it's clear the "they" being referred to in the beginning is the Biden administration

But in the 18 months since Roe fell — a period during which dozens of women have come forward with harrowing stories of medical care denied because of abortion bans — the Biden administration has only publicly announced one case, involving a patient who had sought care in Missouri and Kansas, where it determined that hospitals had violated the law in denying an abortion. The rejection of the Oklahoma complaint, a decision that was delivered to Statton in October, shocked abortion rights advocates and left them frustrated that the Biden administration was not following through on its promise to strongly enforce the law when it came to abortions.

“Jaci’s case is the perfect example of how it appears they are actually applying EMTALA in what could be charitably described as the narrowest sense,” said Rabia Muqaddam, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, who worked with Statton on her complaint. “It’s not just frustrating. It’s inexplicable, frankly.”

Seems like they're entirely right to blame the Biden administration here for not following through on pledges to hold red state healthcare systems to federal law when there's also things like this going on

Biden officials also confirmed one additional case that the administration had determined violated EMTALA involving a woman who presented at two different hospitals in Florida with a life-threatening pregnancy condition in December 2022. In that case, first reported by The Washington Post last year, doctors said they were unable to treat the woman under Florida’s abortion ban, which outlaws abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

...

While abortion rights advocates said they were glad to hear of a second EMTALA action, they questioned why the Biden administration would issue these previously unreported warnings in secret.

“In our view, true accountability requires the public and other hospitals to know about these violations,” Muqaddam said.

Other patients with high-profile cases that might have qualified under EMTALA had never heard of the federal law and had no idea their hospital could potentially be held responsible for their treatment. Of the seven patients contacted directly by The Post, or through their lawyers, only two said they were aware of any kind of state or federal investigation into their case, and neither had been informed of any violation.

[Bolding added]

Really seems like there's a lot more the administration could and should be doing here

[–] Cowlitz 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Biden absolutely should be fighting this battle. I won't hold my breath as i assume the Supreme Court will butt in but he should at least be trying. I don't see why he wouldn't given that it would be politically beneficial.... then again ive seen him get more raked over the coals for trying on other issues (like student loans) when others who do less dont get near the scrutiny so politically it might not be all that helpful. Its still the right thing to do though. People are dying and red states have decided they have no obligation to follow EMTALA.

Things can be emergencies before people are actually in the process of dying. They consider labor an emergency medical condition under EMTALA and the vast majority of the time people dont die from it. Many could even get by with no medical care at all (not that we should do that). If labor fucking counts so should dying a little more slowly than active dying.

Transferring patients out of the ER does not absolve them. Its disappointing and fucked that this is being allowed to happen.

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